R.I.P.D. (C-)

The entertaining character of Marshall Roy Pulsipher, brought to life by a fantastic performance from Jeff Bridges, elevates R.I.P.D. from outright atrociousness to the very low end of mediocrity.

Officer Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) is a dirty cop who wants to reform so as to please his wife (Stephanie Szostak), but is instead shot dead by his even more crooked partner (Kevin Bacon, playing the picture’s primary antagonist). Before being pulled into the light, Nick is taken aside by a ghost (Mary Louise-Parker, funny as always) who recruits him to join the R.I.P.D., the Rest in Peace Department. The RIPD is dedicated to finding the deadoes--zombie/ghosts that escaped judgement--and either transporting them to hell or blasting them out of the cosmos.
Of course, there is a catch. To be in the RIPD, everyone must believe you are dead. Each RIPD agent looks like a completely different person to everyone else’s eyes except each others. I’m not quite sure how this works, as their other-looks are drastically different in height and build from their real bodies.

The Rest in Peace Department is a lot like the Men in Black, right down to being very loosely based on a fictional organization from a comic book series and having a passion for capitalizing conjunctions in acronyms. The big difference (aside from quality of movies) is their standards for admission. To get into the MIB, Agent J had to run down a cephalapod. To get into the RIPD, Nick Walker had to be a dirty cop who had done nothing impressive in combat except get shotgun-blasted off a three-story building without spilling any blood (this is a PG-13 movie, after all). Perhaps we are supposed to believe Walker is a capable cop or warrior, but if there was a scene indicating that in the script, it wasn’t deemed important enough to make the final cut. And I am not just talking about his actions prior to “death.” Walker continues his lackluster reasoning and combat skills after gaining immortality, continuing to be the guy not bad enough at his work to get fired but never good enough to stop making the boss regret giving them the job in the first place.

The story--and I use that term very loosely--was written by the duo behind 2010's Clash of the Titans, while the picture was directed by Robert Schwentke, who’s previous film was the first Red. It would be easy to blame them for all of the pictures shortcomings, but this is a movie that is so poorly made in so many different ways there is no way only three people could be responsible for the disaster. A giant production like this requires a studio to actually have a hand in the production, something Universal (which funded this mess) clearly didn’t.

The special effects are some of the laziest I have seen. Despite having a $130 million price tag, the visuals look cheap and slapped-together, presumably due to the artists being rushed along to meet a summer release date. The biggest issue, though, is that everything is so absurdly generic that it becomes insulting. Giant blue light-beams shoot into the sky, wall-paper warps in fast-motion, every New York City street--shot in unrealistic orange and teal color grading--looks the same. The make-up on the monsters is like something you would see in a seasonal Halloween store. The final transformation Kevin Bacon makes into his zombie/fiend form would provoke unintended laughs if anyone was still paying attention. The opening fight is in a dilapidated warehouse; the final one on the roof of a deserted office building. Many of the buildings interiors are just one blank color because neither the production designer nor visual effects supervisor had the budget, time, or initiative to actually make the locations look unique. I guess it doesn’t matter how generic the settings are because there is very little of a plot connecting these fight scenes to each other.
And yet, there is one thing that makes this movie watchable: Marshall Royciferus Pulsipher. Roy (a role that was originally given to Zach Galifianakis of all people) was a 1800s cowboy who, after his vicious murder, was recruited to the R.I.P.D and has now been assigned to be Nick Walker’s partner/mentor. A gonzo character who’s next action is impossible to predict, Roy is a spark of life and originality the movie desperately needs. Roy is consistently funny, charming, entertaining, and occasionally is quite touching; this is somewhat the work of the script (and maybe the comic), but is mostly because of a fantastic scenery-chewing performance from Jeff Bridges, who is clearly putting a new spin on his fantastic work as Rooster Cogburn that got him an Oscar nod in True Grit.
Due to Roy Pulsipher, R.I.P.D. isn’t quite the train wreck it could (and should) have been. If you are truly bored and it is in Redbox for $1, it could be somewhat enjoyable. However, this picture is still mediocre at best and disappoints far more than it entertains.