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movie review - R.I.P.D.

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Sometimes there are movies that seem to be grown up around the personas of the lead actors. This movie, about cops in the afterlife who chase down ghosts that have escaped damnation, features Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds. And that's all you really need to know.

Well OK, you want more: Uh, Men In Black but with dead gangsters meets .. Ryan Reynolds. The rest, honestly, eludes me, as I found my attention wandering. Such is the price of watching something on a streaming service.

It may strike the reader as odd, but before I sit down to record these capsule reviews, I tend to look them up on IMDB to figure out the names of the cast, what the budget was, etc. This one cost more than $120 million, and I don't know where it went! Right into the two stars' pockets, I suppose? It wasn't on the writing, because then they would have hired someone who knows how to write to engage an audience. It wasn't in the cinematography, because then it wouldn't have been chock full of annoying close-ups, wild swings, and lots of slo-mo.

This thing is currently pulling down a 5.6/10 on IMDB and that's unusually off the mark in my opinion. This is a four/ten. Not recommended.