R.I.P. Failed Blockbuster

Of the three awful movies I recently acquired, R.I.P.D.: Rest in Peace Department was the one I had the least hope for -- as in I expected it to be a shitty, shitty turd of a movie (redundant as that is) barely worth paying attention to. And damn, was I ever right.

As many reviewers have pointed out in the past, RIPD (the movie) is basically a Men in Black clone, just with undead "monsters" instead of aliens. The plot's a little different, but it still involves a newbie agent joining a force that pursues extra-normal entities while attempting to maintain the secret of the extra-normals existence. Young agent is teamed up with a sassy veteran, one who doesn't respect the younger agent's skills and knowledge of "the job", and the two butt heads repeatedly... up until it's convenient for the plot to have them work their issues out and team up to save the Earth from some apocalypse or another.

Now, I haven't read the comic the movie is based on, but from what I can tell, the movie kept very little of the original concept, and instead took what worked (buddy cops searching for a mystical maguffin) and slapped that skin over a rejected script for MiB. I honestly wouldn't surprised if that was the case, since so many scripts in Hollywood start off as script for completely different movies (I seem to recall that Cyborg started off as a script for as a sequel to Masters of the Universe), and if that's the case, I wouldn't necessarily have an issue with it. Having not read the comic series I wasn't the target fan-boy demographic, and all I'd need is a decently put together script with some zippy humor, and MiB-knockoff or not, I woulda been happy.

Because, let's really be honest here: the MiB series peaked with the first movie and the sequels lacked the fun and breezy feeling the first flick had. It's pretty obvious at this point that Will Smith is just coasting in his career, and any MiB movie at this point is just going to be him hamming it up for a few minutes before he collects his paycheck.

The problem with RIPD is that itisn't even a very good MiB clone. I'd gladly take MiB 2 over this dreadful wet-fart of a movie -- and MiB 2 is amazing awful.

Our movie opens with Ryan Reynolds paying Nick Walker (whitewashed from Nick Cruz in the original material, this much i was able to determine), a mildly dirty cop betrayed by his partner, Kevin Bacon (proving he's never met a bit of scenery he was incapable of chewing). Killed by the Baconator and sent to Heaven, Walker has one choice: join the R.I.P.D. to protect the Earth from the escaped undead or face the wrath of Judgment. Walker chooses to continue being a cop (of course).

Paired with his partner (a wild-west Jeff Bridges), the two have to hunt down the undead, but Walker also plans to investigate his own murder, which just so happens to tie into the larger plot the two R.I.P.D. officers stumble upon by complete happenstance (because of course it does).

Aside from the fact that the story of the movie requires a lot of convenience to make it work, the simple fact is that RIPD is more a lose collection of scenes than a real story. Walker dies. Walker is introduced to Heaven. Walker has "funny" exchanges with his partner. Walker chases down ghosts. Whee! Everything works out in the end because it's a Hollywood movie, so of course they do, but there's very little explanation given to why things happen the way they do except "we're on to the next scene, and here's the gag!"

The lack of explanation is especially glaring. For instance, there's a head of the R.I.P.D. office in Boston. Why is she in charge, and what exactly is her job aside from bossing people around? Why are there multiple offices for a supernatural police force when, from the look of it, they can just warp anywhere they want via a door? Wouldn't it make more sense to have one large, interconnected office, especially when threats to a single city can destroy the entire world?

How do the undead (called "deados" in the movie) work? They're apparently escaped undead, except in no way are we ever told how they managed to escape. The whole "plot" hinges on a magical artifact that can reverse the flow of the dead from Heaven back to Earth (which apparently will allow the deados to remain on Earth even though, so far as we can tell, they have no problem hanging out here as it is).

And why is that the deados can hide themselves so well? They have a smell apparently, and if you give them cumin (of all things) they reveal their twisted awful self, but what kind of magic are they using to hide? No magic is ever shown (aside from some blessed bullets and a holy artifact) so does magic even really exist? Is it just blessing and curses? If all these artifacts are so rare, how can the R.I.P.D. just go around wasting so damn many bullets?

And on the topic of those bullets, both the R.I.P.D. and the deados seem to have access to them. They're billed as R.I.P.D. special issue, so how did the deados get them? Can deados even touch them since they're blessed (and the dead are plainly not holy).

Ignoring all these plotholes and the relative lack of a strong story, maybe the movie would have still worked if the acting had been better. Why Jeff Bridges is awful as a Wild West sheriff working for the R.I.P.D, and Mary Louise Parker is pretty funny as the R.I.P.D. boss, the rest of the cast is pretty bland.

I like Ryan Reynolds, and I know the dude can act -- he's fantastic in Van Wilder, and he has dramatic chops, as proven in Safe House. Here, though, he's just phoning it in. it's like, if he's not in a purely comedic or dramatic role, Reynolds shifts to Green Lantern mode, giving the blandest performance he can.

And Kevin Bacon... oh god, smarmy, awful Kevin Bacon. The Baconator can act. At least, he used to be able to act, back in the day. I think Kevin BLT has just gotten bored with his chosen career at this point and (like so many performers before him) is simply in it now for the paycheck. The role in RIPD is beneath him, obviously, but he's just awful in it.

While I'm ravaging the movie, special mention should be paid to the special effects. CGI has come a long way, allowing studios to create complex monsters that look real. CGI, when used right and done right can create amazing things. Or, you can have RIPD, where from the very first shot of the movie the CGI is horrendously awful looking. It's not even laughably bad. It's just bad.

Its very rare that I watch a movie and think "in every way this movie deserved to fail." RIPD does the stupefying job of being not only as bad as everyone said it was, it's actually worse. I have a hard time saying anything nice about it. This movie bombed, and we were all spared a sequel. Let's be grateful for that.