R.I.P.D.: Good, So Long as You Sleep Through It

Recently, two events have occurred that seem inseparable from a proper review of R.I.P.D. The first is that I covered a film called Maniac which was one of the least pleasant filmic experiences I have ever encountered, and that means something very special coming from a man with no less than two American Psycho posters adorning his walls. Mostly, this Maniac review was notable to me because I have never advised all of humanity to avoid a film, thereby setting a new personal low for a critical response. Secondly, a film critic for a major publication wrote a review of V/H/S/2, condemning the entire film as devoid of merit, despite having walked out during the first segment of a multi-director anthology picture, which I saw as a new low for film criticism.

It is with that in mind that I must formally declare that I fell asleep during R.I.P.D.—something I have not done since the age of six (yes I called my family to double check that information). I missed approximately five minutes in the second act, although the other two people in the audience informed me that I missed nothing, and I am going to trust them despite the fact I suspect they picked this theater as the perfect location to hook-up without possibly bothering other patrons. I will not say I would have rather reviewed the hand-job being given in the back of the room, but deciding between that and R.I.P.D. was a pretty close decision.

I do not feel the need to apologize for drifting off to sleep since I am fully convinced it was the film's intention. Despite using an exciting source material in Peter M. Lenkov's comic, R.I.P.D. feel like the kind of film built for ignoring on flights. Rather than screenwriters, it seems that R.I.P.D.’s producers decided to take the least interesting parts of Men in Black and Ghostbusters, feed them into a white noise machine, and have a child draw the dreams inspired by their weird experiment.

Regrettably, the film itself never closes in on "interesting-bad" but instead sputters around on the verges of blandness and occasionally dips into uninspired. The action sequences are shot in such a disjointed fashion that I actually experienced a brief dizziness, not from high-octane adventure, but from a camera seemingly stuck in a rock polisher. Ryan Reynolds is instantly forgettable, Jeff Bridges manages a vaudeville interpretation of his own Rooster Cogburn, Stephanie Szostak was given nothing to work with, and Mary Louise-Parker performs quirk for quirk's sake.

The problem I'm left with is this: I could have given this film a better review had I slept through it because I have already reviewed this film. Had R.I.P.D. actually provided the nap it tried too hard to deliver, I would have been ecstatic. Maybe whatever nonsense background material seeped into my subconscious would have given me a dream-state worth of my attention for that long. Hell, I know I would have given this film a better review had I never seen it. I could have defended Reynolds for that stupid reason that I always do. Or I could have clung to the source material, and pretended there were glimmers of hope to be found amongst this quivering, studio-meddled victim of a film. But the reality is I nearly submitted my Green Lantern review, word for word, with only the title changed—nearly every line of it held up, right down to the poor comic book adaptation. The sad part is at least I could praise that film's main villain, while a poorly CGI'd Kevin Bacon in R.I.P.D. never really felt like a threat. Or a character. Or worth remembering.

The film isn't bad enough to be terrible and isn't competent enough to keep me awake and if you went to Green Lantern you might experience déjà vu. There's no need for me to tell you it isn't worth your time, because none of you were going to see it anyway. If you want a weird story of odd fighters battling supernatural foes, John Dies at the End is waiting for you on Netflix, and it did so much more with so much less.