Nick Walker, a narcotics detective with the Boston Police Department, has just been killed in the line of duty. Rather than face judgment to determine his final resting place, Nick is recruited by Chief Mildred Proctor into the Rest in Peace Department (R.I.P.D.). Part of the reason for he ending up in this limbo of sorts is that on Earth, he and his partner, Detective Bobby Hayes, in the process of a drug raid, found a stash of gold pieces, which they took for themselves, Nick doing it solely in the want to make a better life for his wife, Julia. The limbo is also despite Nick, before his death, feeling remorse for this action and vowing to turn in his share of the gold, in the process not turning in Bobby. The mandate of the R.I.P.D. is to go back to Earth to find and destroy deados - dead people who have been able to evade judgment and are now back in human form among the living on Earth - so that they will face that judgment, ultimately sending them "down there" as their final resting place. Initially, Nick, learning that he will be going back to Boston, expects that he will be able to reunite with Julia and avenge his death in this job, that is until he learns that R.I.P.D. members are given new appearances and thus new identities. Nick is partnered with Roy Pulsipher, a longtime R.I.P.D. member who was a southern US Marshal during the Civil War era in his life on Earth. Judgmental Roy, who is not told of Nick's criminal actions, hopes to be able to retire soon to go to his final resting place. In the process of their work, they will discover that the gold pieces have a higher more nefarious purpose which, if in the wrong hands, could spell the end of life on Earth as it is known. As such, Nick tries to do this work while attending to his own initial goals of avenging his death and reuniting with Julia, which may not be easy considering the role of the gold pieces and with Roy and Proctor constantly looking over his dead shoulder. After Nick is murdered by his own partner, he joins the Rest in Peace Department to protect the world from the undeads. While working with his new partner, many undeads are seen gathering in Boston. Soon he realizes that someone close to him is behind all a plot to bring on the apocalypse. What can you say about a flick where the only real actor is a sixty-something acting veteran with a penchant for playing old cowboys. That's right. Jeff Bridges is the best thing in this lousy film. For a career that spans over five decades one would think that they are just biding their time to pay off a few expenses. Why else? R.I.P.D. Is one of those buddy pictures that incorporates the genre of other comedy adventures. It' a bit of Ghostbusters, Men In Black, and 48 Hours I guess. But the plot is silly and for 85 minutes this caper just drags on.<br/><br/>Without all the clever one-liners by Bridges this movie would have been left on the shelf. Kevin Bacon has a thankless and forgettable role as the villain. Mr. Reynolds, your career is over. Hollywood has taken a gamble on you and they only took a bath as a return on their investment. You are about as wooden and dull as a leading man can be with above average looks and inferior talent. "Until they pop, they look like regular people, so no one except us knows they're monsters inside."<br/><br/>The trailers made me think RIPD could be the MIB of this generation, but this film is nowhere near it. The comedy never delivers much laughs and the action scenes were mind numbing. RIPD is almost so bad that it is good, but it doesn't quite reach that level either. Director, Robert Schwentke (Flightplan, The Time Traveler's Wife, and RED), failed to bring Peter M Lenkov's Dark Horse comic to the big screen despite having Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds in the lead roles. These are two actors I really enjoy watching on screen, but they have made some terrible movies in the past as well. I haven't seen Reynolds in The Green Lantern, but this is probably on that same level. For Bridges this is probably by far his worst film although some people enjoyed his performance. He seemed to be making fun of his own performance in True Grit. The story was a little too wacky for my taste and the characters were all formulaic. We've seen these partners in hundreds of other films who are forced to work together but eventually grow on each other despite their differences. There are few surprises in this buddy comedy, which easily makes it one of the worst Summer movies of 2013. <br/><br/>I will try my best to explain this wacky plot. Nick (Ryan Reynolds) is a Boston cop who is murdered by his partner, Hayes (Kevin Bacon). Upon his death he is recruited by the Rest in Peace Department. Proctor (Mary Louise Parker) explains to Nick what his new role is and introduces him to his partner, Roy (Jeff Bridges) a veteran in the force who has been dead since the 1800's, which explains his Wild West cowboy looks. The RIPD is responsible for hunting down dead souls who have escaped judgment and refused to leave the living world. Their job is to hunt them down and bring them back for judgment. These souls are disguised as regular people, but Roy teaches Nick how to discover and reveal their monstrous side with some Indian food. Nick and Roy aren't seen in the living world as their normal selves, they have avatars so no one they knew in their past lives can recognize them. Roy is a beautiful blonde (Marisa Miller), while Nick is given the body of a middle aged Chinese man (James Hong). This prevents Nick from making any contact with his widowed wife, Julia (Stephanie Szostak), whom he desperately wants to reach. Nick and Roy uncover an apocalyptic plot and will be forced to stop the monsters responsible before they achieve their goal. They will have to leave their differences behind and work as a team.<br/><br/>I feel like this is just way too much writing for such a dumb and mind numbing movie, but I can't quite figure out how the producers were willing to spend over 130 million dollars in this film without trying to come up with a better script. The villains in RIPD look way too cartoonish and the action scenes are extremely over the top. The funniest moments in RIPD have to do with the revelation of Nick and Roy's avatar bodies. The only problem is that you can simply watch it in the trailers and avoid seeing this movie. RIPD could've been executed better by a more talented director. I could forgive the stupid plot if the characters were better developed, but not even the talented actors could engage the audience with the material they were given. RIPD is one of those movies that you don't even worry about trying to get your time and money back; you simply hope that you can forget all about it and erase those cheesy images and dialogues from your head. The worst comic book adaptation since “Jonah Hex.”
Chamylli replied
372 weeks ago