R. I. P. D. is a 2013 American 3D comedy action film directed by Robert Schwentke, based on the comic book Rest in Peace Department by Peter M. Lenkov and published by Dark Horse Entertainment.
The film cost $130 million but took only $78,324,220 worldwide at the box office. However, it must have done well on home release formats because a belated sequel, R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned, arrived in 2022.
Main cast:
Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon (The Following; Flatliners; Tremors), Mary-Louise Parker (Red Dragon), Stephanie Szostak, James Hong (Shadowzone; The Vineyard; Destination Inner Space).
Plot:
Boston Police Department Detectives Nick Walker and Bobby Hayes stole a chest full of gold found during a drug bust, and Nick buries his share of the gold in his backyard, intending to use it to create a better life for himself and his wife, Julia.
However, he regrets his decision and informs Hayes he intends to return the gold. Later, during a raid on a warehouse, Nick and Hayes get into a shootout with criminals, and Hayes kills Nick to prevent him from returning the gold, framing one of the criminals for the murder.
While ascending through a tunnel in the sky to the afterlife, Nick is pulled into the office of Mildred Proctor, director of the Boston division of the Rest In Peace Department (R.I.P.D.), an agency that recruits deceased police officers to patrol the afterlife and capture “Deados”, spirits that failed to cross over and return to Earth as monstrous ghosts.
Nick agrees to join the R.I.P.D. after Proctor explains that it would stave off a potentially negative final judgment for at least a century, and meets his new partner, Roy Pulsipher, an ex-U.S. Marshal who lived in the 1800s…
Reviews:
“For a movie that so strenuously rips off Ghostbusters and Men in Black, R.I.P.D. manages to come up with fresh new ways of being absolutely terrible. The plot manages to be fully predictable and freakishly bonkers at the same time, seemingly born of the same kind of brainstorming-on-L.S.D. session that must have given us Howard the Duck.” New York Post
“R.I.P.D. isn’t good by any stretch: the effects are awful, the dialogue is iffy, and the story isn’t terribly engaging, but it isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be from the critical response. The cast really saves it from being an unwatchable disaster, but only just. If you are a Ryan Reynolds or Jeff Bridges fan, you probably wouldn’t regret the time spent watching this flick.” Misan[trope]y
“While lots of summer movies seem to think more is more, or a longer running time means a better movie, R.I.P.D.is blissfully brief. And like Men in Black, its world is ripe with wild creatures and bonkers possibilities for adventure … While Bridges’ apparent ad-libs could have used a bit more editing, he’s a wonderful source of energy and humor” Cinema Blend
“R.I.P.D. is full of so much outrageous slapstick and over-the-top violence that even Wile E. Coyote might find it a little silly. Most of the folks we see can’t be killed, and so we see them get smashed by cars, run over by buses, thwapped by cinder blocks, flattened by construction equipment, bonked with metal signs and repeatedly hammered by slabs of cement.” Plugged In
Buy: Amazon.com
“This spends little time on exposition and doesn’t go in for any false pathos; compared with most recent comic-book movies, this is lean, unpretentious filmmaking–and to my taste, a lot more fun for it.” Chicago Reader
“A bloated blockbuster that squanders a promising premise in favour of soulless set-pieces and ejaculatory explosions of CGI.” Digital Spy
Trailer:
