SPLICED MOVIES /
REVIEW / R.I.P.D.
ISSUE 01
by Chris Savides
The Rest
in Peace Department
or R.I.P.D. is a legendary
otherworldly police force tasked with protecting mankind from monstrous
and vulgar souls disguised among the living as ordinary people.
Watch
the
trailer
This is Ryan
Reynolds's fourth
appearance in a
film adapted from a
comic book. He also
played Hannibal
King in Blade: Trinity,
Deadpool in X-Men
Origins: Wolverine
and Hal Jordan in
Green Lantern. All
three films garnered
criticism from fans,
this film looks to do
more of the same.
At least Reynolds is
consistent.
These souls are known as Deados
who refuse to move peacefully to the
afterlife. Enter Sheriff Roy Pulsifer
played by the Dude himself Jeff
Bridges (The Big Lebowski, True Grit)
and recently deceased wisecracking
detective Nick Walker played by
Ryan Reynolds (Safe House, The
Proposal). Bridges and Reynolds
in a buddy-cop f antasy film about
the afterlife, it should be awesome
right? What if I told you that Robert
Schwentke, director of 2010's Red,
was the man in charge of bringing all
this awesomeness to the silver screen?
This should be a fun ride full of action
and great effects! Can’t wait, right?
Well, no. Unfortunately for R.I.P.D.
and people watching it, it’s far from
being anything like that, and suffers
from a fatal dose of Lifeless Script
Syndrome, and is borderline one of
the worst comic movie adaptations
ever. In fact, Jonah Hex is a better film
than this (gasp!).
R.I.P.D. tries to be the paranormal
version of Men in Black meets
Ghostbusters. Replace the aliens
with evil Deados and it’s essentially
the same idea, except Men in Black
did it better, and Ghostbusters did
it funnier and classier. Men in Black
was a fresh original idea at the time,
whereas R.I.P.D. feels like it’s a copy/
paste job of pretty much everything
we’ve ever seen before. There isn’t an
original idea in this movie. The effects
are even rehashes of what we’ve seen
before, and honestly in certain scenes
the CGI looks like it’s a decade old.
Here’s the brief, (and I do mean
brief, I couldn’t have made it longer if
I watched the movie in slow motion)
story outline: Detective Nick Walker
tragically gets killed in the line of
duty, and ends up in that precinct in
the sky. We meet Proctor played by
Mary-Louise Parker, a welcome sight as
always, who informs Walker that they
could use a cop with his skills and he
subsequently gets partnered up with
Roy, a veteran and legend of the R.I.P.D.
They get sent to earth to uncover
Deados disguised as everyday humans.
In a cruel twist of fate though our
heroes do not look like their former
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