Starring Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak, James Hong, Marisa Miller, Robert Knepper and Mike O'Malley. Directed by Robert Schwentke.★½
It's not Men in Black meets Ghostbusters.
It's Men in Black 2 meets Ghostbusters 2.
It's an example of unoriginal filmmaking filled with CG effects that can't hide that the jokes fall flat, the mystery is obvious every step of the way, and the action scenes have no consequence.
Ryan Reynolds plays a cop murdered by his partner, but before he faced Judgement, he's allowed to put in some years in the Rest In Peace Department (RIPD), a luxury that Earthly law-enforcers are allowed to tip the scales in their favor. They go to Earth and hunt down the dead (nicknamed dead-o's) who are masquerading as the living. See? Very MIB.
He's paired with a squinty-eyed Western lawman played by Jeff Bridges, cashing in his True Grit goodwill. They fly through the exposition so they can get to the chases and monsters and stuff.
The most clever aspect of the movie is how they appear to the living as a supermodel and old Chinese guy. Unfortunately they don't really do much with this premise.
So yeah, waste of money, and it deserved its box-office failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment