← Back to Reviews
in
Repo!: The Genetic Opera
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Blood, Bugs, Kissing, Marriage.
In a world ravaged by disease, corporation GeneCo rises out of the ashes, offering life-saving transplants. Winning sway over the people through a combination of surgery-as-fashion propaganda and an addictive painkiller, their monopoly manages to install a legal policy of organ repossession.
This sets up a four-way story involving Shiloh, a motherless and sickly girl, daughter of Nathan, a secret Repoman, whose wife was secretly killed by Rotti, who subjugates both him and "Blind" Mag, all of whom were intimate friends with Shiloh's mother. Rotti also has 3 children that he's ashamed of an the occasionally Narrator, Graverobber, wanders between scenes into offer a bit of worldbuilding and a couple songs.
The story is rather difficult to summarize without explaining all the little details, but it's very digestably presented in brief but solid chunks of exposition, delivered in a comic book format at periodic intervals to cast light on each characters' background as they know it. As we reveal each character, their relationships to each other becomes clearer and the ensuing drama becomes reasonably potent.
Okay, enough of the sterile crap, THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME, or I would really really really like to say that if not for a couple niggles that get to me.
#1 is obviously the gore, there's at least 3 scenes of substantial gore and there's an excessive spot of blood and corpses throughout so if you're squeamish this movie isn't going to go far with you. Frankly, it's just the few instances of disewboweling characters that I really didn't need to see and even the movie's not-entirely-serious undertone which comes out with Rotti's cartoonishly evil kids and silly sound effects does little to cushion scenes of graphically cutting skin and pulling peoples' spines and organs out.
Easily the biggest strike for me.
Following that would have to be two songs which I simply don't like:
Mark It Up, which takes the silly evil to an unpleasant level (singing about stabbing new holes into someone to **** isn't especially tasteful) and really it just feels out of place with the rest of the movie.
Also Seventeen, which despite offering a surprise(ingly appropriate) cameo by Joan Jett, really just encapsulates the biggest issue with the songs, which I believe is Alexa Vega, from Spy Kids fame, who simply lacks the range and... maybe the charisma that made questionable/bad singing easy to overlook in Willy Wonka. She also doesn't have another better singer to hide behind since it's a solo, and when the song revolves entirely about her indignance at being denigrated as a 17-year-old and is just some plot-irrevelent rebellious teen song, I can't help but appreciate that it ends with her getting slapped in the face.
Both of these songs are entirely unnecessary to the story and they don't speak well of the rest of the tracks which are by and large phenomenal. It's a refreshing splash of symphonic metal that kicks in at the 60 second mark, careens through numerous memorable and catchy plot-driven songs all the way into a clever medley that resolves in a piano finish. It's some sick **** that I really can't do justice without a video, so allow me to give you a taste of the most popular of it's songs, Zydrate Anatomy:
That's some Nine Inch Nails type stuff you got there, and Terrance Zdunich as Graverobber has a surprisingly sexy voice for a career comic book artist.
His pleasing rumbles are echoed by Anthony Head and Paul Sorvino who play Nathan and Rotti respectively, both with some truly rockin' solos including Legal Assassin and Things You See In A Graveyard.
Those aren't even my only favorites either, 21st Century Cure is super fun to sing along to and Chase The Morning is a earwormy-break from the metal format.
I can't help, but think that metalheads and B-movie horror fans are missing out with this genre mashup.
I DON'T much like the horror elements, but I'm partial to the punk aesthetic and I really do think it's an interesting story told through some exceptional music and singers.
I was really disappointed to see people raise up The Devil's Carnival (made by the same guys) above it, when it's music is a far and away inferior to Repo, but either way I find myself in the unique position to say that as much as I enjoyed singing along to Repo!: The Genetic Opera, it only gets a 4 out of 5 from me.
THE SOUNDTRACK, HOWEVER... 5 out of 5. Non-deluxe version.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
Repo!: The Genetic Opera
Sci-Fi Horror Musical / English / 2008
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
"Say that you once bought a heart or new corneas, but somehow never managed to square away your debts,
he won't bother to write or to phone you, he'll just rip the still-beating heart from your CHEST!"
he won't bother to write or to phone you, he'll just rip the still-beating heart from your CHEST!"
Blood, Bugs, Kissing, Marriage.
In a world ravaged by disease, corporation GeneCo rises out of the ashes, offering life-saving transplants. Winning sway over the people through a combination of surgery-as-fashion propaganda and an addictive painkiller, their monopoly manages to install a legal policy of organ repossession.
This sets up a four-way story involving Shiloh, a motherless and sickly girl, daughter of Nathan, a secret Repoman, whose wife was secretly killed by Rotti, who subjugates both him and "Blind" Mag, all of whom were intimate friends with Shiloh's mother. Rotti also has 3 children that he's ashamed of an the occasionally Narrator, Graverobber, wanders between scenes into offer a bit of worldbuilding and a couple songs.
The story is rather difficult to summarize without explaining all the little details, but it's very digestably presented in brief but solid chunks of exposition, delivered in a comic book format at periodic intervals to cast light on each characters' background as they know it. As we reveal each character, their relationships to each other becomes clearer and the ensuing drama becomes reasonably potent.
Okay, enough of the sterile crap, THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME, or I would really really really like to say that if not for a couple niggles that get to me.
#1 is obviously the gore, there's at least 3 scenes of substantial gore and there's an excessive spot of blood and corpses throughout so if you're squeamish this movie isn't going to go far with you. Frankly, it's just the few instances of disewboweling characters that I really didn't need to see and even the movie's not-entirely-serious undertone which comes out with Rotti's cartoonishly evil kids and silly sound effects does little to cushion scenes of graphically cutting skin and pulling peoples' spines and organs out.
Easily the biggest strike for me.
Following that would have to be two songs which I simply don't like:
Mark It Up, which takes the silly evil to an unpleasant level (singing about stabbing new holes into someone to **** isn't especially tasteful) and really it just feels out of place with the rest of the movie.
Also Seventeen, which despite offering a surprise(ingly appropriate) cameo by Joan Jett, really just encapsulates the biggest issue with the songs, which I believe is Alexa Vega, from Spy Kids fame, who simply lacks the range and... maybe the charisma that made questionable/bad singing easy to overlook in Willy Wonka. She also doesn't have another better singer to hide behind since it's a solo, and when the song revolves entirely about her indignance at being denigrated as a 17-year-old and is just some plot-irrevelent rebellious teen song, I can't help but appreciate that it ends with her getting slapped in the face.
Both of these songs are entirely unnecessary to the story and they don't speak well of the rest of the tracks which are by and large phenomenal. It's a refreshing splash of symphonic metal that kicks in at the 60 second mark, careens through numerous memorable and catchy plot-driven songs all the way into a clever medley that resolves in a piano finish. It's some sick **** that I really can't do justice without a video, so allow me to give you a taste of the most popular of it's songs, Zydrate Anatomy:
That's some Nine Inch Nails type stuff you got there, and Terrance Zdunich as Graverobber has a surprisingly sexy voice for a career comic book artist.
His pleasing rumbles are echoed by Anthony Head and Paul Sorvino who play Nathan and Rotti respectively, both with some truly rockin' solos including Legal Assassin and Things You See In A Graveyard.
Those aren't even my only favorites either, 21st Century Cure is super fun to sing along to and Chase The Morning is a earwormy-break from the metal format.
I can't help, but think that metalheads and B-movie horror fans are missing out with this genre mashup.
I DON'T much like the horror elements, but I'm partial to the punk aesthetic and I really do think it's an interesting story told through some exceptional music and singers.
I was really disappointed to see people raise up The Devil's Carnival (made by the same guys) above it, when it's music is a far and away inferior to Repo, but either way I find myself in the unique position to say that as much as I enjoyed singing along to Repo!: The Genetic Opera, it only gets a 4 out of 5 from me.
THE SOUNDTRACK, HOWEVER... 5 out of 5. Non-deluxe version.