R.I.P.D. (2013)

It’s a formula as old as cinema itself. Create two law enforcement characters—one of them being very much by-the-book, the other being something of a wild card—concoct a scenario that forces the two of them to work together, and watch the action-packed hilarity ensue. There’s nothing particularly original about this type of storyline anymore, but denying its very basic appeal would be foolish. If these types of films didn’t still hold some thrall with the movie-going public, Hollywood wouldn’t be making them anymore. It’s idea recycling at its most blatant, but if the filmmakers are able to give this old template a unique twist then it can still feel fresh in the eyes of audiences. The new film R.I.P.D. may like to think it’s offering something different, but as it chugs along it becomes more and more apparent that it has nothing new to say or offer.

Everything about it, down to director Robert Schwentke’s energetic, cartoonish style, seems directly ripped from similar high-concept films that have come before. The most blatant movie from which it borrows ideas is, of course, Men in Black. Much like Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1997 film, R.I.P.D. tells the story of a younger officer who, through a series of odd developments, winds up working for a supernatural police force that monitors activity on Earth. In the case of Schwentke’s film, this younger officer is Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds), and while working a drug bust he winds up getting shot in the head. (But not in a bloody fashion, thank you very much. There’s a PG-13 rating to be dealt with.) Immediately after dying, he is recruited into the eponymous Rest in Peace Department, which hunts down dead folks that were able to stay on Earth and avoid judgment. It doesn’t really make any sense, but they explain it away in a line of unhelpful dialogue.

After R.I.P.D. boss Mary-Louise Parker shows Nick the ropes, he meets his own personal Tommy Lee Jones in the form of Ray Pulsipher (Jeff Brides), an old west cowboy who has been working in the department since the 1800s. Not long after they begin killing “dead-os” they stumble upon a villainous plan involving ancient gold, a portal to the afterlife, and Nick’s old partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon). In between the clunky and cartoonish action scenes there is much quipping, and the film itself drifts further and further away from the direction it should have been heading all along.

A central gag involving our heroes’ outward appearances on Earth provides a fine example of what is most wrong with R.I.P.D. To normal humans, Nick looks like an old Chinese man (James Hong) and Roy looks like a blonde supermodel (Stephanie Szostak). The film returns to this joke so many times that the well dries up early and never fills up again. R.I.P.D. never has a firm handle on its oddball universe to begin with, and so it’s left to repeat premises like this one over and over again until its considerably lean 96-minute running time is up. It has some amusing/interesting moments, but almost all of them come in the first act. Once it actually has to get down to the business of motoring through the plot, it gets real perfunctory real fast. Watching the latter half of this film is like watching a football team down 35 points in the fourth quarter try to run out the clock so they don’t have to be playing the game any longer. There are aspects of the R.I.P.D. universe that I wanted to see more of, but the film itself blows right by them in favor of sprinting toward the finish line.

When a movie seems even less interested in its own material than the audience, that is a bad, bad sign. Bridges is at least able to provide a few substantive moments, but he isn’t bringing anything to the table we haven’t seen from him before. Reynolds, who I continue to not hate, is in “bland leading man” mode here, and the script feels like it is made up of 65 percent exposition. It’s not a hopeless mess, but it is a mess nonetheless, and it’s not a surprise that the studio seems all too anxious to toss this movie aside. R.I.P.D. is all premise and no actual content; there are enough quirks to just keep it afloat, but it seems almost painstakingly designed to be forgotten once the credits begin to roll.

Grade: C