Review of R.I.P.D

R.I.P.D. 
A knockoff to 'men in black' or just a compliment to the workings of Ed Solomon.


Plot
R.I.P.D. is a supernatural comedy based on the comic book rest in peace department. The film stars Ryan Renolds and Jeff Bridges act as cops who had died and been sent to a department especially for the dead to kill all "Deados." Within this each cop is killed by their former partner, Nick Walker (Ryan Renolds) found a piece of gold from a previous investigation and his fellow partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon) was out to find the missing piece which Nick had taken from the crime scene.

Review

A fun, light hearted comedy with tear jerking moments directed by Robert Shwentke, this film has it's exciting moments which make you sit on the edge of your seat, but also have you guessing and being right at every guess you made on what will happen next. This is usually a dissapointing moment in a film when you seem to be getting everything right but the acting by Jeff Bridges makes up for it. Clearly by starring Ryan Renolds the aim was to attact another audience which is middle aged women, but the real star to many was Jeff Bridges because he was a pure comedian in the supernatural comedy. Ryan pulled out a few puns here and there, but Jeff had everyone crying hysterically the whole way through. With his cross of characters throughout, Shwentke got it right with the comedic timing on this one. Jeff even had a song in the film 'the better man', Nobody would say this is the next big pop star but it did all make us laugh.

Kevin Bacon played the villian very well at times, sometimes more than others. He failed to really make himself apparant to us, he was the villian yet didn't seem that important as he only really seemed to take charge in the last 30 minutes. Which is slightly disappointing considering in other action films the villian competes with the main character for the starring role in the film. Saying this it should be noticed that he was very good once he revealed his true character as a "deado" because his character was dead before that, no pun intented.

This film seemed to contain a few simularities in story line to other films. There was a sense of 'Ghost' and 'Men in black'. Very much the same story line as men in black as both were killing zombie like creatures, and both were cops or in that area of work. Some may argue that R.I.P.D was a knockoff version of this film due to the same base of story line with a few changes here and there, whereas some may say it took inspiration from those great films and put it's own spin on it to contribute to the genre.

The film didn't seem to do well in the box office either being stated as 'disappointing'. The amount of money spent on this film was pulled back when hearing they didn't think they'd do well. Maybe they stayed too safe, isn't everyone tired of hearing the broken record of killing zombies?


Verdict

A great film if your into broken records. Sit and enjoy the comedic workings of Jeff Bridges, while you expect the expected.