R.I.P.D.
DVD Review
by Kam Williams
Killed Cop Rises from Dead in Zany Zombie Comedy
Veteran detective Nick Walker (Ryan
Reynolds) is very content between his 15-year career with the Boston Police
Department and being happily-married to the love of his life, Julia (Stefanie
Szostak). However, his American Dream is irreversibly ruined the fateful day he
is assigned to bring down a drug cartel conducting business out of an abandoned
factory along the waterfront.
For, greed gets the best of his
partner, Bobby (Kevin Bacon), after the ensuing shootout, when he discovers a
stash of gold artifacts. And instead of taking the antique ingots back to
headquarters, he decides to shoot Nick dead and blame the murder on the bad
guys. To add insult to injury, Bobby not only consoles Julia but he even has
the temerity to put the moves on the grieving widow.
Meanwhile, Nick finds himself
neither in Heaven nor Hell, but in a police purgatory where a proctor
(Mary-Louise Parker) offers him a chance to return to Earth as a member of a
squad of zombie cops called the Rest in Peace Department (R.I.P.D.). He leaps
at the opportunity, and is immediately paired with a
late, Old West lawman named
Roycephus Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges).
The
grizzled gunslinger grudgingly agrees to work with a partner for the first
time, and in the blink of an eye the two are teleported back to Beantown to
round up renegade dead souls who have somehow evaded the afterlife. There, Nick
conveniently also has an opportunity to check in on Julia and plot his revenge
on Bobby.
Like a poor
man’s version of Men in Black, R.I.P.D. is a
disappointing action comedy both in terms of action and comedy. Think “ghost”
instead of “alien” adversaries and you have the basic idea of what director
Robert Schwentke was going for.
Unfortunately,
the obsolete special f/x leave a lot to be desired, and the corny jokes just
fall flat. Another major structural flaw is the lack of chemistry between the
protagonists, a no-no in any unlikely-buddies adventure. Ryan Reynolds looks
lost opposite the drawling, generally unintelligible Jeff Bridges who behaves
like he’s still on the set of True Grit.
R.I.P.D.
is D.O.A.!
Fair (1 star)
Rated PG-13 for violence, profanity, sensuality and sexual
references
Running Time: 96 minutes
Distributor:
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Blu-ray/DVD Combo
Pack Extras: 2 alternate endings; R.I.P.D. Motion Comics; Nick’s New Avatars;
Filming the Other Side; Walking among Us: Deados and Avatars; Anatomy of a
Shootout; deleted and alternate scenes; gag reel; and The Making of R.I.P.D.
featurette.
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