Talk about an acquired taste! But then again maybe you have to have taste to enjoy opera, and if you argue with me I’ll repossess your liver (grab some fava beans and a nice Chianti). If you ever wondered what would happen if the director of Saw made a musical then this is the flick for you.
In the far flung future, devastating organ failures caused the deaths of millions of people. This genetic catastrophe gave rise to the GeneCo Company founded by Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino). GeneCo could offer you an organ transplant… for a fee – try our convenient payment plan. This company’s rise to prominence soon meant that Largo became the most powerful man in the world and one of the richest.
However, when people were not able to make their payments he started losing money. So he pushed a new law through Congress that GeneCo had the right to repossess the transplanted organs and the survival of the payee was not a guarantee.
Zydrate is a high powered painkiller that’s highly addictive and if you can’t afford to get it legally black market dealers will sell you some that they’ve extracted from corpses. Time passed and now Rotti is dying. He doesn’t want to leave his company to his ingrate children, Luigi (Bill Moseley), Pavi (Ogre), or Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton).
Luigi is a knife wielding maniac, Pavi is scarred and wears other faces to cover his deformities, and Amber is addicted to Zydrate as well as having plastic surgeries. His head repo man is Nathan Wallace (Anthony Stewart Head), but since the identities of these legal murderers are secret nobody knows.
Not even his daughter Shilo (Alexa Vega) who he keeps isolated from the world since she is sick from a blood disorder inherited from her late mother. Her mother was romantically involved with Rotti, but left him for Nathan. Now that Rotti is about to shuffle of his rented mortal coil he’s planning a special vengeance for Nathan and it involves Shilo.
Meatloaf (the singer, not the food), The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Paradise, and Phantom of the Opera: if anything in that list of inspirations found in Repo doesn’t float your boat then you might not want to check this flick out. However, if one of more of them jazzes you then hit play on your DVD player and prepare to enjoy.
This film is definitely going to be an acquired taste and it amuses me to think of the folks that read “from the creators of Saw” and rent it thinking it’s another slice and dice (not that there’s not some disembowelments, etc. on display). The story of Repo is told in grand operatic fashion, in other words dialogue is sung not spoken. That being said, not all of our players really should be singing.
The mentally diseased Largo family’s illness seems to have metastasized to the vocal cords especially. The patriarch is the one who comes off the best with Sorvino delivering some operatic flourishes to his role that make up for the times that he doesn’t hit the right note (according to his Wikipedia bio, 18 years of voice lessons). The major “nails on chalkboard offender” is Bill Moseley, but his character is such a nutjob that we’d not expect him to sound anywhere close to sanity.
Indeed, the singing of the Largo family appears to be bad to show what bad people they are. All are sociopaths and devils with Ogre donning different faces ala Phantom of the Opera.
That finally brings us to Paris Hilton, who can neither sing nor act. However, that actually works in her favor since the character isn’t supposed to have any redeeming qualities.
To carry the Phantom of the Opera theme further, Sarah Brightman is the most accomplished of the singers but is perhaps one of the creepier ones as her character of Blind Mag is blind but made to see by GeneCo with artificial eyes. This gives her a corpse-like stare that I found chilling.
Anthony Steward Head goes from coffee commercials and Buffy to belting out some grand tunes here and Alexa Vega does sing teen angst well. If there ever was a film with “cult” written on it, it would be Repo.
If I had one disappointment it’s that some of the songs are too short and that they all start to sound very similar by the time the film is over. Just know what you’re in for before you pop this one into the DVD player.
Repo! The Genetic Opera is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include two commentaries. The first is from director Darren Lynn Bousman and actors Bill Moseley, Alexa Vega, and Ogre. The second is from Bousman, creators Darren Smith (who cameos as the jumpy conductor of the finale opera) and Terrance Zdunich (who plays the Graverobber), and music producer Joseph Bishara.
The 11 minute “From State to Screen” covers the history of the project and the 4 minute “Legal Assassin” is about the Repo man. Finally, you get the 2 minute theatrical trailer. Fans with Blu-ray players may well want to seek out that edition as it has some nice sounding exclusive special features, like deleted scenes and songs.
Repo is a fun ride if you’re willing to go along with it. It’s like they threw good doses of music, the items I mentioned above, and Tim Burton into a blender and pushed “eviscerate.” The bloody pulp that was produced was then slapped on the screen with loving care by Bousman and the results are delightful (if you’re into it).
I’m going to rate this one rather highly, just don’t complain if you watch it and wonder why everyone is singing because you’ve been warned that it’s not for all tastes… I may have to call in a favor and have your tongue repossessed if you do.
Repo! The Genetic Opera is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a March 9th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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