Not funny enough as a comedy and too silly to take serious

The trailer is hilarious so I viewed it, but was disappointed.

It's a campy creature feature inspired by the true story from 1985 directed by, of all people, Elizabeth Banks. It was Ray Liotta's second to last movie before his death on May 26, 2022. Keri Russell is on hand as the concerned mother of a tween hiker. In real-life the black bear weighed 175 lbs, but this was changed to almost 400 lbs for the movie.

The production unbelievably cost $35 million. I say "unbelievably" because this is a decidedly throwaway creature feature of the semi-goofy SyFy variety. The CGI is a little superior, but not enough to make any appreciable difference. I'm speaking as someone who enjoys some of the better SyFy flicks on occasion. A good example is "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), aka "Devil on the Mountain," which only cost $800,000.

Except for the lush scenery (shot in Ireland, south of Dublin), this is decent but generally meh. As my title blurb says, it's not humorous enough as a comedy, but you can't take it serious either because it's too goofy. It doesn't help that Keri is the only female worth mentioning (as a footnote at that).

How this garnered as much attention as it did is a great mystery. "Grizzly Park" (2008) treaded similar terrain and, while far from a great movie, is more entertaining than this (at a fraction of the budget).