If there's one thing I absolutely can't stand, it's a film that tries to be something it's not, and fails every step of the way. Repo! The Genetic Opera thinks it is many things: horror, a musical, a rock opera, a cult film, artsy, and interesting. It is none of the above.
Before anyone accuses me of not "getting it," let it be understood that I am madly in love with the horror genre. I enjoy art films and blood-and-guts films, even bad ones. Repo! left me reeling, not because I was bothered by the gratuitous gore, but because everything about it was full of pain.
Somewhere in this mess was supposedly a plot. An evil, corrupt, futuristic company called GeneCo rules the world (oh, gee, how original) by providing people with dirt-cheap fashionable organ transplants. However, there's a catch - if you can't pay on time, a guy in a mask called the Repo Man will rip your guts out. I'm not kidding.
So, we have Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega), a pale, sickly, pampered teenager who looks like she stepped out of a Hot Topic poster. She has a hereditary blood disease, and her devoted dad (Anthony S. Head) is the Repo Man. We find out this second plot twist roughly 15 minutes into the movie, eliminating any possibility that there will be real conflict or mystery. There's also something about her dad killing her mom, but not really; it was actually the evil GeneCo guy (Paul Sorvino), who now wants to turn Shilo against her dad and toward him so that he'll have a competent heir for his conglomerate, as opposed to his three disastrous offspring, one of whom is Paris Hilton. Yes, I am confused too.
About 85% of the dialogue is sung; this is a very bad thing. Not because rock operas are inherently bad (I loved JCS), but because writers Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich (who also plays the Grave Robber, a narrator figure with no actual purpose) were too busy creating "art" to write lyrics that scan, we are treated to such accidental comic masterpieces such as "Ashes, ashes/dust, dust/my children were a bust!" If I ruled the universe, I would make it divine law that you cannot get into heaven if you have ever deliberately rhymed the words "passing" and "guessing." Also, with the exception of Sorvino and Sarah Brightman (if you absolutely must see it, see it for her), none of the cast can sing. Head is erratic, Bill Moseley and Nivek Ogre are ridiculous, and Vega and Paris Hilton are just plain annoying.
This is not the Rocky Horror of my generation. Rocky Horror was fun, memorable, and featured extremely talented performers. Repo! was agonizing, excruciatingly pretentious, and memorable only in its badness. Two days after seeing this film, I cannot remember a single "song" from it (for the record, the background music sounds like the Nails-On-A-Blackboard Choir). Repo! will be forgotten by all but the bad-movie aficionados in a few years. "Art" it is not, unless you count unintentional comic gold.
Before anyone accuses me of not "getting it," let it be understood that I am madly in love with the horror genre. I enjoy art films and blood-and-guts films, even bad ones. Repo! left me reeling, not because I was bothered by the gratuitous gore, but because everything about it was full of pain.
Somewhere in this mess was supposedly a plot. An evil, corrupt, futuristic company called GeneCo rules the world (oh, gee, how original) by providing people with dirt-cheap fashionable organ transplants. However, there's a catch - if you can't pay on time, a guy in a mask called the Repo Man will rip your guts out. I'm not kidding.
So, we have Shilo Wallace (Alexa Vega), a pale, sickly, pampered teenager who looks like she stepped out of a Hot Topic poster. She has a hereditary blood disease, and her devoted dad (Anthony S. Head) is the Repo Man. We find out this second plot twist roughly 15 minutes into the movie, eliminating any possibility that there will be real conflict or mystery. There's also something about her dad killing her mom, but not really; it was actually the evil GeneCo guy (Paul Sorvino), who now wants to turn Shilo against her dad and toward him so that he'll have a competent heir for his conglomerate, as opposed to his three disastrous offspring, one of whom is Paris Hilton. Yes, I am confused too.
About 85% of the dialogue is sung; this is a very bad thing. Not because rock operas are inherently bad (I loved JCS), but because writers Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich (who also plays the Grave Robber, a narrator figure with no actual purpose) were too busy creating "art" to write lyrics that scan, we are treated to such accidental comic masterpieces such as "Ashes, ashes/dust, dust/my children were a bust!" If I ruled the universe, I would make it divine law that you cannot get into heaven if you have ever deliberately rhymed the words "passing" and "guessing." Also, with the exception of Sorvino and Sarah Brightman (if you absolutely must see it, see it for her), none of the cast can sing. Head is erratic, Bill Moseley and Nivek Ogre are ridiculous, and Vega and Paris Hilton are just plain annoying.
This is not the Rocky Horror of my generation. Rocky Horror was fun, memorable, and featured extremely talented performers. Repo! was agonizing, excruciatingly pretentious, and memorable only in its badness. Two days after seeing this film, I cannot remember a single "song" from it (for the record, the background music sounds like the Nails-On-A-Blackboard Choir). Repo! will be forgotten by all but the bad-movie aficionados in a few years. "Art" it is not, unless you count unintentional comic gold.
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