'Repo! The Genetic Opera' Movie Review
Screen Musical Has Blood, Guts, Paris Hilton, But No Soul or Fun
Feb 2, 2009
The best way to catergorize 'Repo!' is by calling it the polar opposite of 'Mamma Mia!'--it's a freakshow, or Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson's wet dream.
In the year 2056, organ failure has become a worldwide epidemic. The corporation of GeneCo offers life-saving transplants and surgeries to patients but then sends out the "Repo Man" to reclaim the organs if they don't pay up. The Repo Man is a widowed father (Anthony Steward Head, from TV's 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer') who keeps his profession a secret from his repressed 17-year-old daughter, Shilo (Alex Vega, of the 'Spy Kids' films), who suffers from a rare blood disease. The rest of the story doesn't really matter, as a lot of blood splatters and stomachs are opened without anesthesia.
Torture-Porn Franchise Director Fails to Branch Out
Director Darren Lynn Bousman of 'Saw II,' 'III,' and 'IV' puts on a very ambitious production, no doubt. The visual style is perfectly Gothic and the sight of the grimy metropolis is nifty. But for the sake of spilling blood and intestines, it's too grotesque and disgusting to be fun. Bousman's direction and claustrophobic staging do not help either.
Unlike 2007's well-done film version of 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,' the gore effects are ugly and lack that certain campy glee. Banal dialogue such as "I will rush home when I'm done" is belted out in thrown-together, rhythmless song, with the operatic musical set pieces pretty hit-and-miss. Most of the music deals with plastic surgery, disembowelment, drug use, and graverobbing. We'll take the bubbleheaded 'Dancing Queen' or 'Mamma Mia' any day.
Strong Cast Tears Scenery To Shreds
The performances are more fun than the rest of the film, but don't quite salvage the whole production. Everyone seems to be high on caffeine pills, hitting high-camp. Vega gives singing a shot and she has enough talent to make us care even a little bit about Shilo; the brightest musical set pieces happen to be with her. Paul Sorvino is a loony bird chewing the scenery as GeneCo's CEO tycoon. Paris Hilton plays Sorvino's snobby daughter who can't sing and is obsesed with plastic surgery, so on that note she's pretty darn well cast. Rob Zombie veteran Bill Moseley ('House of 1000 Corpses, 'The Devil's Rejects') screams as loud as his vocal chords will go, playing Hilton's brother. Singer/Andrew Lloyd Webber's ex Sarah Brightman, as opera singer Blind Mag, and Head are the only standouts.
'Repo' has no taste, but there will be an audience for this bizarro type of musical. Without question, it will earn itself a cult following anyway.
