Universal Pictures
R.I.P.D., a movie in which dead cops do right by the living when they join the Rest in Peace Department, boasts a “good” dead Boston cop, Nick (Ryan Reynolds), whose moral compass went temporarily askew on earth. There’s the sort-of-dead “bad” Boston cop, Hayes (Kevin Bacon) who killed Nick. And there’s also Roy, a blustery 19th century fossil-of-a-lawman (Jeff Bridges) – he’s sweet on the R.I.P.D. administrator (Marie-Louise Parker), happens to be the most renown cop on the team, and gets the newly arrived Nick as his new partner.
But the real star of R.I.P.D., directed by Robert Schwentke, is The Funnel.
Usually the newly dead ascend in a sort of funnel-like trajectory, in a one-way northern direction, for divine judgment. But some baddies on earth would like to make that pathway go both upwards and downwards, allowing the dead to descend and take over the earth.
The key to making The Funnel into a two-way street is some gold pieces which, when assembled, becomes a kind of cosmic metal tapestry. And, although this is a straightforward fantasy action movie, the two semi-circles which attach together and start the climax rolling have the archetypal flavor of the coins paid to Charon, the mythic Ferryman of Hades, who rowed the souls of the newly dead across the river Styx which separated the world of the living from that of the dead.
Mercury, the energy that rules commerce, did the errands of the gods by scuttling back and forth from earth to the netherworld. The dead-o’s, as they’re called in R.I.P.D., plan to step on Mercurial territory. Guess who wins?
Astrology Film Rating: ☿ (Mercury)
