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In the near future, an epidemic of organ failures has struck the globe. From the ashes of chaos, a savior emerges; Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) and his company GeneCo, which offers articifial internal organs for cheap monthly fees. The world is all good and well, until Rotti begins to abuse his power; he lobbies a bill through congress, making it possible to reposses organs. He also invents a new addictive painkiller, Zydrate. An illegal version of said substance can be extracted from the dead and sold on the street like a drug by Graverobbers (The narrator in this movie is one, and is played by co-creator Terrance Zdunich). So, if you miss a payment on your organ, Largo sends a Repo Man after you. One of the Repo Men, Nathan (Anthony Stewart Head of Buffy-fame), has a sick daughter named Shilo (Alexa Vega) to look after. But Rotti has a devious plan to destroy Nathan's life once and for all over an old grudge, and he will put it into action. Bodies will come, blood will flow, organs will be repossessed, and boy, everyone will sing through the whole thing.
Now, if you read what I just wrote about the plot, you're probably thinking only one thing; THIS MOVIE IS PACKED! And why, yes it is. This is why it's amazing how Bousman actually keeps all the strings in his hands. The film has a very straightforward progress, and it never feels truly confusing. Narratively, it's damn near film school-material. When we get a new character, we sometimes get his/her background story explained in neat comic book-panels, which provides calm moments in the middle of the storm that is the soundtrack of this movie. Repo apparently holds a record for having the most songs ever recorded just for a movie, and the number is somewhere around 65 or so. Even though some just last mere seconds, they're still good and enjoyable songs throughout. Repo follows a very different style as far as musicals go with the soundtrack. You see, Repo is literally an opera. This doesn't mean that it's full of fat bearded men going "AAAAA", as it is a rock opera, not a classic opera. The songs don't necessarily rhyme at all, but they're sung in rhyme. Most of them are rock songs, and many famous musicians were involved in composing them (such as a few former GnR-members). The funny thing is, most of the song are completely different from all the other songs; they're almost always different than the one that came before. This can have you thinking "Wouldn't that be pretty annoying to listen to?" And I answer, no. It's refreshing in my opinion to watch a musical so varied in style. Also, as I said, the comic book-moments really calm you down abit on your first viewing so you don't get an onslaught of musical goodness. Honestly, a great majority of the chances you have of liking this movie depends largely on your musical taste. If you like rap, you're **** out of luck, but if you're into pop, rock, heavy or even jazz, you'll probably enjoy the music. Don't skip Repo just because you don't like musicals. If you don't like musicals it's generally because the music in musicals is usually pretty classical so to speak, it doesn't necessarily have much to do with the fact that people sing in the movie. But if that's your problem, then unless you hate music, you will still enjoy the singing in Repo, and here's why: You get used to it. This film consists of nothing else but music and comic book panels; perhaps 20-50 lines of dialogue are spoken instead of being sung. This blasting of music at you from frame 1 gets you used to the fact that it's a musical very fast, and soon you hopefully won't hate it either. That's what happened in my case atleast.
For a film that cost roughly 6½ million dollars to make, Repo is excellent in visuals and production value. It looks pretty much as good as any modern fantasy/sci-fi film. The CGI never really looks cheap, and mostly it's undetectable. However, I must note the single flaw in the production design in my opinion; the blood and guts (there's quite a bit of it) mostly looks like rubber covered with blood, something that I always think is abit... well, dumb. I have seen intestines, and let me tell ya, they don't look the way they do in this movie, and sure as hell don't stretch that way. Anyways, how would I describe the visuals of this movie? Imagine if Philip K. Dick would meet Tim Burton, then they'd go on an acid trip together and draw what they see. The result would be pretty much the same as Repo's visuals. And when I say those two, I mean them quite literally. This Genetic Opera pulls a lot of things out of other movies and books, but instead of doing what I'd expect it do do with these other materials, it does the unexpected; Repo becomes something original by taking unoriginal elements from other works. It works to the movie's benefit, as instead of playing a game of "spot-the-reference" you get engrossed into Repo's world. It has some unique things in it, granted, but the visuals are mostly taken from other products, then manufactured into something original. One thing though that bothers me is that a large part of this originality comes from complete randomness, AKA the costume design. Some costumes are wonderful and seem practical, such as that of The Repo Man, but some... I mean there are people dressed in tutu skirts, bodyguards that are always topless, bodyguards who wear sunglasses all the time, huge fur coats all over the place, a feathered corset-skirt... The costume design is very hit and miss. It's original, but it seems some of it was just made by randomly pointing at two different materials and then combining them. But the designs don't lack consistancy, since the whole thing is consistantly random! It's really a weird thing, and annoying, but at the same time endearing; it's weird to see this amount of originality in movies nowadays, even if it is mostly achieved via being all random and stuff.
Now, let's quickly deal with the acting. Paris Hilton is the first thing I need to address because everyone goes "EWWW" when they see her in the cast-listing. You probably know my movie taste to some extent, right? You, my dear reader, must know that I have some resemblance of dignity and atleast some movie taste, and some honesty as well, so I would never say that there's a very good performance in a movie unless I REALLY thought so. Brace yourself, because I'm about to say something that is almost as bad as me sometimes liking Uwe Boll's movies: Paris Hilton is great in Repo. There's a reasoning behind this. She plays one of Rotti Largo's children, Amber Sweet. All of Rotti's children (more on the other two in a bit) are spoiled brats, and Amber happens to also be addicted to plastic surgery. Essentially Paris Hilton plays a spoiled bitch throughout this film, and I don't give a rat's ass if she does this well because she's experienced at being just that or if she's just a good actor; what matters is the result, and Hilton convinces as this fictional character. Also, she has some small things in her performance that you might miss unless you look close, and they add character to her... well, character. She for example shows joy in a very fun little way after Rotti promises to pay her next surgery, and she shows this joy in a way I won't spoil to you at this moment, since you have to see it yourself if you want to know. The other Rotti-kids are played by Bill Moseley and Ogre from Skinny Puppy. What's Skinny Puppy? I don't know, but I guess it's some industrial band. Bill plays a businessman-type of guy named Luigi, who has some serious rage issues. Moseley provides most of the comic relief here, and if you've seen The Devil's Rejects or House of 1000 Corpses or TCM2, you're probably wondering if he's any good at singing. To be honest, he isn't. His singing sounds pretty much like someone would be throwing a cat to a wall or something, but this fact is overshadowed by one thing; Moseley has fun with the part. He always looks as if he's enjoying himself, and Bill's the type of actor that can transfer that enthusiasm to the viewer as well. This works well, and his casting, though it may seem weird at first, makes sense the first time you hear him get pissed, because he is absolutely hilarious. Now, Ogre on the other hand plays a guy called Pavi, and he's the weird one in the family. Yes, he's even weirder than a plastic surgery-addicted little bitch or a rage-infested maniac. You see, Pavi is a true ladies man. As he says it himself, "I will leave your diapers dripping", he always hits it off with the ladies. Now comes the weird part. Pavi always wears a face. He has hooks on the sides of his face that allow an extra face to be planted ontop of his own hideously disfigured mutt, and for some reason THIS SEEMS TO TURN EVERY WOMAN INTO A PILE OF HORNY *****. It makes no sense, but atleast he's a very good actor/singer, and I enjoy his on-screen presence regardless of his silly character. Paul Sorvino is a very intimidating bad guy, and he has a very impressive voice. Anthony Stewart Head is also impressive in his part, but as a person who has seen the musical episode of Buffy countless times, this comes as no surprise. Alexa Vega is good in her role, and is obviously enjoying her on-screen time always. Terrance Zdunich also deserves a special mention as a somewhat seductive Graverobber, who also works as a narrator throughout the story. His voice is like someone would be pouring chocolate... INTO YOUR EARS. He might not be the best actor, but the moment he opens his mouth, you forget that.
Really, what's wrong with Repo then? Aside from the things I've already mentioned, there are still two things. One, the sound effects. They're often like out of a looney toons-cartoon with Zings and Boings all over the place, and it unfortunately breaks the mood sometimes during a few athmospheric songs. Don't worry though, they aren't that often used. The bigger problem to me was the fact that there is absolutely no one to relate to in this story. The person I thought I was supposed to relate to turns out to be a douchebag near the end, and by then it's too late to change your "allegiances" so to speak. Movies should generally have atleast one character with who you can relate fully, instead of being like in Repo where you can relate with one thing with one of the characters and another thing with another character. This causes major problems especially towards the end; I can't find myself really caring about anyone's fate because I don't "feel for them". This is obviously a pretty personal issue, but still, it's also a personal review, and that's what I thought constantly. Truly, the characters are one of the greatest charms in Repo but through this they also become it's biggest problem, and possibly the reason why I can't give this movie a ten with a straight face. I will give Repo! The Genetic Opera a solid 9 for being what it is.
9/10
