R.I.P.D.

Detective Nick Walker is gunned down by his own partner and upon his death; he is carried away to a Purgatory like middle world between Heaven and Hell. There he is conscripted into joining the Rest In Peace Department (R.I.P.D.) where he is teamed up with a Wild West lawman named Roy. Their task is to capture fugitive dead-o’s and extradite them to hell. But Walker unearths an apocalyptic scheme by the undead to take over the Earth so he and Roy must piece the puzzle together in order to save the living.

This is probably one of the laziest plots I have seen in recent times. It’s as if the writers came up with the generic twists first, and then constructed the story around it. It’s a shame because the basic premise of the film is quite interesting. An undead police force hunting down undead escapees is a big screen concept that hasn’t been done before, to my recollection. It’s unfortunate when a story with potential is squandered by filmmakers who lack unique vision. R.I.P.D. is based on the comic book written by Peter M. Lenkov and published by Dark Horse Comics. Since I haven’t read the comic book I cannot determine how much of the movie is based on the book. What I can say is that the story is a by-the-numbers, standard, Hollywood-made fiasco. 

The casting of this film is dead-on-arrival to begin with. The Jeff Bridges (Roy) and Ryan Reynolds (Walker) combination may have looked good on the casting director’s desk but fails dreadfully on screen. Reynolds’ character alone brings confusion to the overall tone of the film. At times he plays him with stone cold seriousness and other times he displays his signature ‘Van Wilder’ shtick. The scene where Reynolds is carried away to the R.I.P.D. headquarters is especially noteworthy because his facial expression is completely hollow and emotionless. Bridges is an incoherent and inarticulate mess of an undead cowboy. It’s as if he stepped out of True Grit (2010) and stepped into this film. His dialogue is difficult to understand because he mumbles and uses a lot of cryptic colloquialisms. Mary-Louise Parker’s character is irritating and she tries too hard to be funny in nearly every scene she is in. Kevin Bacon is probably one of the coolest actors in the history of movies but he needs to make better choices if not his credibility will be in jeopardy.

Regardless of the dynamic camera work, the zooming shots, the slow motion action scenes and the quick cuts in editing, this film is visually mundane. The CGI is considerably second rate and that’s surprising for a big studio movie. This film is a prime example of everything that’s wrong with the Hollywood Movie-Making-Machine today. Get the rights to a comic book series that has even the slightest bit of uniqueness; done! Pay not one but ‘three’ screenwriters to pen a formulaic screenplay; done! Cast not one but ‘four’ well-known actors to attract the audiences; done! Hire a relatively unknown director to captain a sinking ship; done! And then watch the Box Office disaster that could rival the actual catastrophe of the Titanic; done!

Once in a while a movie comes along which is so bad it transforms into being good, but R.I.P.D. is NOT such a movie. It starts of badly and becomes worse as each act progresses. This is the poor man’s Men in Black (1997). The filmmakers took the exact blueprint of M.I.B. and plugged it into the R.I.P.D. world. The chemistry between Bridges and Reynolds is painfully awkward. The story tries hard to be intricate but is actually quite dumb. From the crude locker room humour to the uncomfortable banter between the main actors, the comedy is mind numbingly dull. Gags are constantly repeated such as the reaction of the regular folk towards Roy’s and Walker’s avatars. I’m sure young kids will find that sort of repetition funny but most adults will be rolling their eyes in annoyance. Some jokes are simply crude and doesn’t belong in this particular film such as the ‘coyotes playing with Roy’s skull’ joke. Director Robert Schwentke is like a newly licensed sixteen year old behind the wheel of a Cadillac. He has no clue as to where he’s going or how to even drive for that matter. With the moderate success of his previous movie Red (2010), Schwentke has been given a bigger budget and a grander story to work with but unfortunately he has ripped this comic book movie to shreds.

Rating: 1/10

S. V. Fernando