Film & TV

Film Review: R.I.P.D.

R.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department) is a cop/buddy movie with a difference – the two cops are undead, waiting in Limbo for their Judgement days.

 

RIPD-filmR.I.P.D. (Rest In Peace Department) is a cop/buddy movie with a difference – the two cops are undead, waiting in Limbo for their Judgement days.

Ryan Reynolds plays a modern-day Boston police officer, who is killed during a raid. Instead of going straight to Heaven, he must serve 100 years in the Rest In Peace Department until his eternal fate is decided.

Partnered with Nineteenth Century lawman Roy (Jeff Bridges), the two are sent back to Earth by their supervisor, Proctor (an extremely grim-faced Mary-Louise Parker), to keep the world safe from “Deado’s” – the undead waiting to go to Hell who have slipped through the cracks. To blend in with ordinary, everyday humans, the two policemen are given avatars, helping to add to the comic side of the film: buff, tough Reynolds appears as a seventy year old Asian man (James Hong); with older, gritty Bridges appearing as a bodacious blonde ‘babe’ (Marisa Miller).

Other nice quirky touches dot the storyline, such as: the transportation method between R.I.P.D. and the ‘real’ world; Reynolds’ gun having its own avatar; and the use of Indian food, in particular the spice Cumin, to detect Deado’s.

Despite these original touches, the screenplay by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (based on the Dark Horse comic by Peter M. Lenkov) is cliché-ridden, predictable (when Kevin Bacon appears two minutes into the film, one knows he won’t just be making a cameo), and derivative. The script could easily have been a cut-and-paste of Men In Black, Ghostbusters, The Avengers, and even 2012.

However, this is a fun, entertaining film with great CGI effects which allows one to forget about their troubles for a little while.

Reviewed by Brian Godfrey

Rating out of 10: 7

 

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