R.I.P.D
Sometimes I like to think that people suffer through terrible movies for purely one element. For example, I’ll sit through repeated viewings of Troll 2 for several bad lines that make me laugh more than the entire box-set of American Pie (a later movie in this slot, by the way). Anyway, sometimes that element is an actor. Say you want to watch Van Wilder purely because it has Ryan Reynolds in it or you watch Wolverine Origins for that little slither of Deadpool before they obliterated him or you watched Blade Trinity merely because you had to complete the set. Or maybe you loved The Proposal – Wait, a minute, damn. I’ve watched a lot of really shitty films for Ryan Reynolds.
So naturally, I had to watch R.I.P.D. But funnily enough, I didn’t watch it for him, I watched it for Jeff Bridges.
Dubbed one of the worst comic book adaptations of all time (this side of Howard the Duck and Jonah Hex,) R.I.P.D revolves around Police Officer Nick Walker who has stolen some gold alongside his partner Bobby Hayes. When Nick wanted to turn himself in, he is murdered by Bobby (obviously. No, wait, Bobviously.) Because of the initial theft, Nick was neither good nor bad and therefore sentences to serve as a police officer on Earth, rounding up dead souls alongside the rootin’ tootin’ Sheriff Roy. However, assimilating to life is tricky especially when Bobby is wondering around up to no good. And when Nick and Roy uncover a terrible scheme, it looks like hell on earth is about to rampage.
Why Is It Bad?
What? What is this shit? This is terrible! It tries it’s hardest to be some kind of jovial Constantine/Men In Black nonsense but it honestly makes little to no sense. It doesn’t seem to try hard at all at explaining the plot which is thrown up into the air, sliced into a million little pieces and scattered throughout the movie to the point of not caring. R.I.P.D physically hopes you’ll be swept up on a sea of bad CGI monsters and action sequences that you’ll never notice exactly how bad the story is and how flimsy the movie is handling it. Some genuinely good actors and Ryan Reynolds seem to have given up hope so their acting is just diabolically dull and you’ll struggle for an ounce of sympathy or investment in the film.
Why Is It Good?
Jeff “Motherfuckin’” Bridges. The Dude. The iconic actor can devour this amount of insanity, swallow it hole and spit it out in such a way that you’ll be strangely begging for more. As the cowboy Roy, he is hilarious, grabbing hold of the seams that are fraying away and basically screaming “not today” in that famous Southern Drawl. You can tell he is having fun with it and that makes it even better because if someone like Jeff “Motherfuckin’” Bridges tells is enjoy this car crash of a movie, you can too. Not to mention on the other side of the pond is Kevin Bacon who is having equal amounts of fun and loving every moment of it makes it a campy supernatural romp that is relentless in its snippy one-liners.
Oh, you are going to HATE R.I.P.D with enough passion to create a dimensional bending black hole that allows spirits to come back to the world. But, if you keep your eye on Bridges, you’ll forget about all that chaos happening in the background.
TTFN
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