Detective Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) and his partner Bobby (Kevin Bacon) in the Boston Police Department nicked some gold from a drug raid.  Nick decides to turn the gold into evidence after seeing how happy his life is with his wife (Stephanie Szostak) and soon he is betrayed by his partner during a drug raid.  Next he finds he is dead, and he is offered a choice to redeem himself by joining the Rest In Peace Department (aka the R.I.P.D.) or face judgment for his life.   He is partnered up with a 19^th century lawman called Roy (Jeff Bridges) and their job is to bring in dead souls who have escaped judgment (aka Deados).   Nick sees this as a chance to make things up with his wife, but he finds out that he and Roy have avatars that make them look different to the real world (Roy looks like a supermodel while Nick is seen by the world as an old Chinese man).   They find out the Deados are hording gold which is somehow connected to the gold that Nick and Bobby grabbed from a raid.  The clock is ticking as the Deados want to put together an ancient artifact that will reverse things and bring the dead souls back to Earth which will have grave consequences for the living.

R.I.P.D. isn’t a great movie or a bad movie.  It falls in-between with an underdeveloped story and comedy that falls flat (there was two moments where I laughed).  R.I.P.D. fails to rise to the comedic levels that made people embrace the MEN IN BLACK films.  I know this film was trying to be MEN IN BLACK with dead people instead of aliens.  The comic book had the R.I.P.D. dealing with demons where the movie changes it to dead souls who try to escape judgment (Deados).   Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds make the characters their own with what material is given them, but I wish they took more effort to develop the partnership between Nick and Roy in addition to writing some actually funny material for the movie.   R.I.P.D. starts out quick enough only to evolve into our two main characters chasing after CGI bad guys and lots of CGI destruction ensues.   It falls into the category of saving the world movie threads already seen before this year in movies like MAN OF STEEL and PACIFIC RIM which both had better scripts like R.I.P.D. and both connected with audiences more.   R.I.P.D. ends up being a big budget flop due to the film being a half backed effort by Hollywood to deliver a supernatural action comedy with loads of special effects, ineffective character development, and terrible humor.   The cast have been in better movies and R.I.P.D. makes it the second big movie with Ryan Reynolds that bombed and scored bad reviews (the other being GREEN LANTERN).

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Two versions of the same alternate opening which introduces Roy earlier into the film while the three alternate scenes and one deleted scene show additional dialogue and footage.  The gag reel is slightly amusing.

NICK’S NEW AVATARS shows various versions of Nick’s new Avatar at the end of the film and some of them are better than what they used in the final film.

TRANSFERRING R.I.P.D.- MAKING OF-

FILMING THE OTHER SIDE- a look at the various visual effects of the film from green screen, cgi, practical effects, and motion capture suits in addition to the split zoom technique the director used in the film

WALKING AMONG US: DEADOS & AVATARS- behind-the-scenes with the actress who plays Roy’s avatar and the actors who play various Deados

ANATOMY OF A SHOOTOUT- a look at the various things that went into making the climatic shoot out.

The DVD includes the film in standard definition in addition to the deleted and alternate scenes, the gag reel, and the TRANSFERRING R.I.P.D.- MAKING OF featurette.

Also the combo pack comes with a code to download or stream an Ultraviolet digital HD copy of R.I.P.D.

FINAL ANALYSIS:  R.I.P.D. is just a movie to rent due to how it fails to have almost no laughs and the movie having an underdeveloped script.  I think I enjoyed the extras more than the movie itself.  It fails to capture the comedic magic that the MEN IN BLACK films had.

This blu-ray review is (c)11-1-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com