Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

I Rob GRRAAAVVVEESSSS
by
J. Sternberg
Staff Writer

            Okay kids, lets get our imagination hats on. Alright, picture the 2000's version of Moulin Rouge as a woman, you got it? Cool, Now picture Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd as a man (not the characters themselves, but put a face on the film, oh and for the hell of it, give it a hot body) got that? Great! Now picture them fucking like mad, and Moulin Rouge forgets her pill, and becomes pregnant. Oh no! What do Rouge and Todd do? Its simply really, get an abortion. They both go their merry way as this abortion has torn them apart, but that is not the end of the story. No! The fetus somehow survived and was raised by Robocop (the original X rated cut). That half aborted bastard, would be 2008's Repo! The Genetic Opera.

            Now I understand that description may be a little vulgar, and extremely over the top, but if you see the film you'll understand why. I went there, because they went there first. The plot of the film is to my knowledge standard opera fair (betrayal, greed, lust, secrets,) but gothed out and chock full of sexuality and violence, and on that level it succeeds. Everything in this beast is so ridiculously over the top that it kinda feels like a punch in the gut when its over with, and you'll most likely need time to digest the film as a whole before developing an opinion.

            The basic premise is that in the future a biotech company has taken to doing enhancement surgeries for virtually anything and everything, and these surgeries while expensive can be financed. Instead of getting sent to collections, or ducking phone calls when you don't pay your bill however, the GeneCo sends out the Repo Man to take back your unpaid innards.

            Now let's get to the meat and potatoes, how was Repo! The Genetic Opera? I liked it, but it had its share of ups and downs. Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), Shilo (Alex Vega) and Nathan/The Repo Man (Anthony Head) all played their parts well, but their overly pitch corrected voices were at times disorienting. Rotti's offspring, Luigi (Bill Moseley) Pavi, easily my favorite character in the film (Ogre), and Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton) were quite simply fun as hell to watch and impossible not to laugh at, in fact my only complaint about them was that they weren't onscreen enough. I loved the graphic novel presentation of the character back stories, but they also could have been better served acted out or animated. Some of the songs were a little hard to swallow (Shilo's "fuck you dad" Avril Lavigne styled "punk rocker" number was horrendous). My biggest complaint however was just that for an over the top production like this, a good deal of it could have been greatly improved by a few tweaks. Being a musical of sorts, the instrumentation on the soundtrack just sounds Casio keyboard bad most of the time, and its almost an unforgivable sin. The Grave Robber character while serving most of the narration purposes of the film was just too overbearing and kinderbat for my liking. Regardless of its flaws, Repo! was a lot of fun, and in the end, that is really all that matters.
I can't recommend it to people that aren't into musicals, but if you dig a rawboned combination of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a slasher flick, you'll probably be quite pleased.

I give Repo! The Genetic Opera 3 "I rob GRRAAAVVVEESSSS" out of 5.

And for the record, this down below is still the best movie with Repo in the title.

And also, see Ken's second opinion, if you don't like to watch movies to get the story, he'll spell the whole thing out for ya real nice like, every shot, plot twist, everything. God Ken takes the fun out of stuff....