R.I.P.D. (2013)

To me, this film appeared like it would have a lot of similarities to Men in Black (1997).  Instead of a police force that protects the earth from aliens, R.I.P.D. has a police force that protects the earth from the dead.  The dead people in R.I.P.D. wear human body suits and hide out among the living, sort of like the aliens in MIB.  Interestingly enough, the dead people in R.I.P.D. and the aliens in MIB are monsters that appear very much alike.  The futuristic guns in each film look like they are all part of the same family.  Each movie has old grumpy veterans of the force that are tasked with training the new recruit.  Hollywood continues to recycle the same ideas.  They twist them around a bit and feed them back to us again on the silver screen.

R.I.P.D. is a buddy-cop comedy with a twist.  Instead of simply just trying to protect and serve, Roy (Jeff Bridges) and Nick (Ryan Reynolds) are deceased cops who try to protect the living from the dead as part of the Rest in Peace Department.  After 15 years on the force, Boston cop Nick is tragically murdered in the line of duty.  Instead of going to heaven, he gets stopped along the way and recruited to become a member of the R.I.P.D.  He gets paired with Roy, an R.I.P.D. veteran.  Roy shows Nick the ropes, but Nick is only interested in investigating his own murder.

The film is directed by Robert Schwentke and the rest of the noteworthy cast includes Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak, Marisa Miller, James Hong, Devin Ratray, and Robert Knepper.

Even with the thought of basically already seeing this movie 3 times before, I expected it to be funnier than it actually was.  Reynolds humor is usually pretty sarcastically witty.  Pairing him with Bridges in a cowboy-like character, I thought that I might die laughing.  This was not the case however.  There was a touch of cleverness that caused a little bit of deserved laughter, but the comedy was mostly just not there.

All of the actors were likable, but the film was desperately lacking originality.  The story was highly predictable and very convenient.  I felt like there was not enough of a back story to the Rest in Peace Department itself and why the dead were trying to invade the earth.  It was hardly explained why the department existed and why the dead were able to come back to earth.  There were just tons of holes in the storyline that were completely overlooked by the characters.  Apparently the viewers were also supposed to overlook these flaws and just go with it.  I did that, but it made the film less enjoyable.

Overall, you can expect a few laughs and a bit of entertainment.  It’s also pretty funny and sad to see what Buzz (Devin Ratray) from Home Alone (1990) has become.

I rate this movie a 6.5 on a scale of 1-10.

Buy, rent, or run?  Rent.