R.I.P.D. – review

Robert Schwentke directed The Time Traveller's Wife and Flightplan; now he takes control of this goofy and derivative supernatural action-adventure, based on a comic-book series by Peter Lenkov. Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds play two deceased cops who are employed by heaven to patrol the earth looking for "dead-ohs", mouldering humans who are dead but refuse to come quietly: they are the Rest In Peace Department. The borrowings are very obvious – Men in Black meets Ghost – and this film has been very coldly received in the US, with awful notices and worse box-office receipts. Yet for all the hostile reviews, I thought Jeff Bridges was rather funny, playing Roy, the undead 19th-century lawman. He doesn't justify the price of admission by himself, but he sure does try.