R.I.P.D. (2013)

As a movie blogger you carry around knowledge about movies. Whether or not you like it that knowledge will automatically activate whenever you watch any movie. You will notice specific techniques and sometimes recognise certain situations as they remind you of other films you saw before. It is next to impossible to ignore that and that’s something R.I.P.D. definitely has been struggling with if I were to believe the few reviews I’ve read of the movie.

Nick (Ryan Reynolds) is a cop who, together with his partner Hayes (Kevin Bacon), has chosen to stray from the straight and narrow and take away some gold from a case they were working on. When he is murdered, it turns out he isn’t exactly dead and is given the chance to work for the Rest In Peace Department. Their job is to search for dead people who still are present among the living and make sure they go where they belong. Nick partners up with Roy (Jeff Bridges), who was a sheriff in the old west when he lived. The two don’t exactly get along, but they focus on their job and try to catch the man who killed Nick. During that they uncover something a lot bigger.

R.I.P.D. has been compared to Men in Black a lot and that’s very understandable. Reynolds character ends up working for a secret organisation, teaming up with a grumpy man who’s been doing the job for ages and instead of aliens they are hunting dead people who (just like the aliens in MiB) camouflage themselves to not stand out. The movie feels almost like a carbon copy of the alien hunting movies and does very little to shake that feeling. So the story is not very original, but is their joy to be had from watching it though? Personally I was able to, because there were enough exciting situations and action scenes that kept me entertained. I have never been a fan of Ryan Reynolds and this movie hasn’t made me change my opinion about him. Both Kevin Bacon and Jeff Bridges are having fun in their roles and I liked watching them.

I think if you would show this movie to someone who hadn’t seen the MiB movies, that they would be able enjoy it. I will admit that there are a lot of predictable moments (some things clumsily shown in a scene that you just know it was there to be brought back later in the movie), but I thought the movie was a nice little time waster.