R.I.P.D.

Back in 2013, director Robert Schwentke took a swing at adapting Peter M. Lenkov's Dark Horse comic R.I.P.D. into a big-budget supernatural action comedy. The result paired Ryan Reynolds as Nick Walker, a freshly murdered Boston detective, with Jeff Bridges as Roy Pulsipher, a foul-mouthed lawman from the Old West who has been policing the afterlife for centuries. The premise is pure buddy-cop fantasy: the Rest in Peace Department rounds up 'deados', spirits who refuse to move on and instead wander Earth in human disguise. The movie's signature gag is that R.I.P.D. officers appear on Earth in avatars that don't match their true selves, so handsome young Nick shows up as an elderly Chinese man (James Hong) while grizzled Roy gets the body of a stunning blonde (Marisa Miller). Mary-Louise Parker plays Proctor, the department's sharp-tongued chief, and Kevin Bacon lurks as Nick's former partner with a guilty secret.

Universal Pictures and Dark Horse Entertainment backed the project with a reported $130 million budget, and the studio clearly hoped to launch a franchise. But the film opened to brutal reviews and pulled in only about $61.6 million worldwide, making it one of the year's most high-profile flops. Critics hammered it as a Men in Black knockoff with a muddled tone, though the chemistry between Reynolds and Bridges earned some grudging praise. The movie has since found a small cult following on streaming, with fans appreciating its campy energy and the sheer weirdness of its body-swap premise. It also stands as a curious footnote in Reynolds' career, coming between Green Lantern and his Deadpool resurgence, and in Bridges' filmography, which he later disowned. A direct-to-video sequel, R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned, surfaced in 2022 with a different cast, but the original's planned franchise never materialized. [edit]

Boston detective Nick Walker has it all: a loving wife, Julia, a decorated career, and a secret. He and his partner Bobby Hayes have been skimming gold from crime scenes for years, and the money has bought them a comfortable life. But Nick wants out. He tells Hayes he's going clean, planning to confess and start fresh with Julia. Hayes, terrified of exposure, ambushes Nick during a routine bust and shoots him dead. Nick's death, however, doesn't lead to the pearly gates. He wakes up in a strange, colorless limbo, where Proctor, the brisk and no-nonsense chief of the Rest in Peace Department, informs him that his soul is tainted by the theft. He must serve the R.I.P.D. until he earns his way into the afterlife.

Nick is partnered with Roy Pulsipher, a grizzled lawman from the 1870s who has spent centuries chasing deados, spirits who refuse to leave Earth and hide among the living. Roy is less than thrilled to babysit a rookie, and the two clash immediately. Their first mission takes them to a warehouse where deados are gathering, and they discover something alarming: the spirits are armed and organized. Someone is building an army. As they dig deeper, they find clues pointing to a mysterious figure who is supplying the deados with weapons and a plan to break the barrier between life and death. The investigation leads Nick and Roy to a series of confrontations with increasingly powerful spirits, and they realize the conspiracy has a human connection.

Meanwhile, Nick is haunted by his love for Julia, who is still grieving his death. He repeatedly breaks R.I.P.D. rules to spy on her, watching her struggle to move on. His emotional vulnerability makes him a liability, and Roy warns him that attachment to the living will only get him killed, again. Nick's past also comes back to haunt him when he discovers that Bobby Hayes is somehow connected to the deado uprising. Hayes, who believes he got away with murder, has stumbled into the supernatural world and is using the gold he and Nick stole to build something that could change everything. As Nick and Roy race to stop the conspiracy, Nick is forced to choose between his duty to the R.I.P.D. and his desperate desire to return to Julia. The case builds toward a showdown where the fate of both the living and the dead hangs in the balance.[edit]