Repo! The Genetic Opera Review

 

Repo! The Genetic Opera was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  I’m sure people will compare it to Sweeney Todd or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but in all honesty Repo! actually rises above those films when it comes to pure originality.  

The movie takes place in a future where human organs can be purchased from Geneco, a company that sells only the best organs to surgery junkies.  Because in this future people are so addicted to surgery it’s not uncommon for people to have daily plastic surgeries in order to improve their appearance.  Only surgery and organs are both expensive, so Geneco offers financing, but if someone defaults on the loan the Repo man comes to collect the organ.  In this future murder is legal, at least for large corporations like Geneco.

But there is at least one person living in this future that isn’t obsessed with surgery.  Shilo (Alexa Vega), who spends most of her time cooped up in her room because of her over protective father Nathan (Anthony Head), but what Shilo doesn’t know is that Nathan is a doctor by day and a Repo man by night.  So Shilo escapes the confines of her bedroom, and heads out into a world she’s never known.  While her father has second thoughts about his career as a Repo Man after he is assigned to kill Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman), who is Shilo’s godmother. Meanwhile the president of Geneco (Paul Sorvino) is ill and his three children Luigi (Bill Moseley), Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton), and Pavi (Nivek Ogre) are waiting in line to take over the family business. Add to that plot some rocking tunes, and a cast that almost never stops singing and you’ve got one of the most unique motion pictures to hit screens in the last twenty years.  Your senses are instantly flooded with a barrage of sound and color as the pace of the movie constantly elevates towards its climax.  

Director Darren Lynn Bousman said that he wanted to make something different, a rock opera, and that’s exactly what he did.  His casting choices were brilliant, even in the case of Paris Hilton, who not only surprised me, but showed depth and emotion as the surgery addicted Amber Sweet.  While Bill Moseley is great as the violently obnoxious Luigi, and Brightman is awesome (and sexy) as Blind Mag, it’s Alexa Vega and Anthony Head that are the real stars of the flick.  Alexa is wonderful as Shilo, and Anthony Head is beyond amazing.  He basically plays two characters, Nathan and the Repo Man.  Both of which he knocks right out of the park.  But it was Graverobber (Terrance Zdunich) that intrigued me the most.  He is a drug dealer that sells Zydrate (a drug used to deal with the pain of constant surgery), and he knows everything about the future he lives in.  He knows the city, its inhabitants, and he ties the it all together with a neat little bow.  

I know critics are tearing this movie apart, but the only reason I can see for the hatred they have towards this flick is pretentious nose in the air bullshit.  Repo! the Genetic Opera was not only a unique moviegoing experience it’s an event that demands multiple viewings.  Bousman created a monster that not only lives, it demands to be heard.  So if your reading this review, ignore all the reviews written by critics that are to good to enjoy something different (i.e. the people that never got laid in highschool), and do whatever it takes to check this flick out on the big screen because it is most definitely a killer film.

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