R.I.P.D. 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A half-hour into the film, and it feels like the eighth day of jury duty. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: God, where do I start? Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: ... the execution is pretty lively, irreverent, visually engaging, and every now and then almost actually witty. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Mr. Bridges is almost always fun to watch, but even his squinting and Slim Pickens-style whooping can't make the time pass faster. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: Benefits from a hilariously free-associative performance by Jeff Bridges. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Nothing short of wiping their memories with a real-life neuralizer is going to convince moviegoers that the supernatural buddy-cop comedy R.I.P.D. is anything more than a thinly disguised Men In Black ripoff. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: It's an unpleasant way to pass a couple summer hours. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Too bad director Robert Schwentke ("RED") and the writing team handling the 3-D screen adaptation don't hold up their end, failing to do much with a premise that felt like it could rate with, say, "Men in Black." Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: This spends little time on exposition and doesn't go in for any false pathos; compared with most recent comic-book movies, this is lean, unpretentious filmmaking--and to my taste, a lot more fun for it. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Not so much of a movie as it is a movie-like substance ... Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: I watched this movie with three chatty strangers on [a] Thursday night in an otherwise empty theater. Universal couldn't say "no." Looks like that's our job now. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: As a major undertaking with clear sequel ambitions, there's just not enough new and exciting here to cut it; when the brief 96-minute running time is one of its two or three only virtues, you know you're in trouble. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: The film is a visual mess, with cheap-looking effects hampered even further by crummy and unconvincing 3-D. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Despite its flaws, "R.I.P.D." is a fairly entertaining and frequently funny movie. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Even though the once-and-forever Dude abides by the rules of the game, he can't raise the pulse on this bomb. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Every movie coming out this year but "R.I.P.D." should pause for a big sigh of relief: The possibility of any of them being called the worst cinematic effort of 2013 has, as of today, just about disappeared. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's not funny. It's not exciting. It's not engaging. It's a waste of time and money. Having seen it, I can understand why it was hidden from critics. The disappointment is that it wasn't hidden from everyone else as well. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: With its low-stakes chase scenes, obvious-from-the-get-go villains and nonsensical plotting, this feels more like a 96-minute-long episode of Scooby-Doo that's been laboriously translated into another language and then back into English. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: One can't help but wonder what the heck Jeff Bridges is doing there. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: The results feel rote and trite, like a mid-1980s NBC pilot designed to take the 9:00 hour between Misfits of Science and Manimal. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Perhaps there was a clever germ of an idea here, but the five credited writers didn't develop characters, scenarios or rules in this sci-fi world well enough to engage the audience. Read more

Chris Packham, Village Voice: R.I.P.D. does offer a pretty good idea of what the afterlife might look like to someone suffering macular degeneration. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: R.I.P.D. is a dud that squanders a decent cast and succeeds neither as the comedy nor the action film it purports to be. Read more