R.I.P.D. (3D)

Stars: Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak, Robert Knepper, Marisa Miller, James Hong

Director: Robert Schwentke

When the going's dead, the dead get going. Only a comic book could have dreamt up a theme like this one. Bridges and Reynolds are dead all right, but they won't lie down; pity the same can't be said about the film.

The increasingly charmless Reynolds, once at home in wacky comedy, now adrift in rubbish like this, plays an honest cop tempted to put his hand in the till. Developing a crisis of conscience, Reynolds is shot dead for his pains by crooked partner Kevin Bacon.

Waylaid on his ascent to Heaven/descent into Hell, Reynolds finds himself paired with long-dead, snarling 19th century sheriff Bridges in the Rest in Peace Department, and dispatched back to Boston with a remit to track down evil 'deados' who have managed to squeeze their way back into the city - and create more mayhem the longer they stay there.

More arrantly nonsensical than any superhero movie, R.I.P.D. has a terrible script, tacked-on 3D effects and a total lack of charisma between its slumming stars, with Bridges even less intelligible than he was in True Grit. That said, the film does kinda do what it says on the tin, and might satisfy easily-pleased fans of this sort of thing. A sequel looks unlikely, but with Hollywood you just never know..

In the supporting cast as Reynolds' 'avatar', buffs will spot James Hong who, now 85, has been unobtrusively playing oriental menaces in films for nigh on 60 years.

David Quinlan

USA 2013. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour by deluxe.
98 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 20 Sep 2013