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Starring Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary Louise-Parker
Directed by Robert Swentke
Have you ever wished that Hollywood would get their act together and reinvent Men in Black for a new generation, only replace Will Smith with Ryan Reynolds and make aliens dead people instead? If your answer is YES, then this is your lucky day. If your answer is NO, well, good answer!
Based on the Dark Horse comic, R.I.P.D. tells the story of Nick (Ryan Reynolds), a married Boston cop who is unwittingly shot and killed during a raid. The only problem is, Nick wasn’t the best cop and made several poor choices which left his soul in limbo. Thankfully, for those souls in the middle of Up There and Down THERE, there is an alternative: R.I.P.D. – The Rest in Peace Department.
R.I.P.D. is assigned to bring in the monstrous souls who have gone missing or rogue. Nick is offered an option – offer up 100 years of service to R.I.P.D. or take his chances with Judgment. After he accepts, Proctor (Parker) partners him up with Roy (Bridges), a weathered cowboy from the 1800’s as crotchety and growly as you can expect.
Roy and Nick take to the streets, conveniently staying in his hometown of Boston, where they chase down some ‘Deados’ and figure out a greater conspiracy at work. In order to hide their cover, they are seen by the rest of the world as a smoking hot blonde and an old Asian guy…a joke that actually worked more than it didn’t. Of course, Nick also tries to reconnect with his wife and locate his own killer, two big no-no’s for R.I.P.D. Oh, and a big way to identify a Deado is through Indian food, cumin mostly. I am sure that is racist somehow, but thankfully the movie did not move me enough to really care.
R.I.P.D. is much better than the trailer led us to believe. There is little new or deep here, but this is not the potential travesty of epic proportions the trailers gave us the impression was possible. There is nothing here that will create a franchise, but there is also nothing really to hate. Unless you’re Indian that is.
I am starting to become convinced that Jeff Bridges really, REALLY, enjoyed playing Rooster Cogburn in the recent True Grit remake. Because that is the character he seems to play in everything now, and that’s exactly who Roy is. If you loved Rooster, then get ready to smile. Luckily the character still works, and the way Roy is presented, it is entirely possible that for Bridges’ acting method, he believes he actually IS Rooster.
Ryan Reynolds gives a very restrained performance here. He is the straight man for once and he knows it. Throughout most of the film he is trying to accept his fate and somehow receive closure with his wife, Julia (Stephanie Szostak). His take on the character, making him more wounded and wistful than wisecracking sidekick, was the right choice and he handled the role better than he has any others in recent memory.
Kevin Bacon also pops up in the film as Nick’s real-world partner Hayes, an actor that I cannot recall being featured in the trailers even once. Bacon is always a welcome addition and R.I.P.D. is no different.
The only real negative in the film, other than the Been-There-Done-That feel, are the special effects. I am pretty sure they hired a college fraternity to helm the effects because some of them were downright laughable. For every time the direction by Red’s Robert Swentke would get the action going and get you to sit up at attention, some poorly done effect would pop and remind you that not everyone in Hollywood effects is as talented as the Pacific Rim guys. There was not a single character design that did not cause me to say ‘Um, that looks ridiculous’ or ‘My mom could render that better’. Never a good sign for a special effects laden flick and something that really took down a film I otherwise enjoyed.
Look, R.I.P.D. could have been an epic disaster and it really isn’t. There are a lot of clever moments and the film is short and fast-moving enough to never catch you looking at your watch. The performances are also fun, even if the story is derivative and the special effects look to be photo-shopped at a K-mart. It’s a fairly entertaining ride that should be no more than a matinee.
If $10 is the full price of admission, this one is worth $5.
Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider
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