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I know, I know, I'm reviewing all my favorite movies, but this one I highly recommend for people who like off-beat movies (i.e. Rocky Horror, Little Shop of Horrors, Phantom of the Paradise). Keep in mind that this has none of those fat-rear end ladies with vikings caps singing some stupid poo poo that no one can loving decipher. This is a rock opera. Anyway, to my review! The setting is 2056, and epidemic of organ failures has killed millions. Suddenly, a savior emerges. This savior comes in the form of GeneCo, a company that makes genetic copies of organs for people to use. The founder of this company, Rotti Largo, and his three children, Pavi Largo, Luigi Largo, and Amber Sweet, have legalized repossession of GeneCo "property". Yes, that is as hosed up as it sounds. When people get surgery, they can sign a contract that says that they can pay for their organ within 90 days, or a Repo man will come and viciously rip out that organ, and give it back to GeneCo. Now that I have explained what the world of Repo! is like, I can now get on to the main storyline. Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), the founder of GeneCo, has been told that he has a terminal disease. Knowing that his children are not worthy of inheriting GeneCo (With Pavi (Nivek Ogre) being a rapist, Luigi (Bill Mosely) being a murderer, and Amber (Paris Hilton) being a druggie), he seeks a different heir. He recalls his past, he was in love with Marni Wallace, who later left him for a doctor by the name of Nathan. Marni, soon after their marriage, got pregnant with Nathan's child, but unfortunately got a terrible sickness. Rotti sees his chance to get back at Nathan and Marni, so when Nathan thinks that he has found a cure, Rotti switches the cure with poison. Marni soon dies, and Nathan, knowing that he can only save one, gets his child out from Marni. Rotti was in need of Repomen at the time, and he recruits Nathan as one. Now, Nathan is keeping his daughter, Shilo, in a room to keep her from the world. Shilo, like her mother, has a blood disease, and one day she gets out and finds out about GeneCo, and a upcoming highly-anticipated event, The Genetic Opera, unknowingly to be public to be organized by Rotti Largo, to "go out with a bang". Shilo gets invited by Rotti himself to come to the Opera, and will soon, at the Opera, be told that she is the heir that he was looking for. The acting is great on some people, and mediocre on others. Anthony Head and Bill Mosely are some of the best I've seen, while Alexa Vega is just okay. I really have nothing more to say about acting so let's move on to the music. The music is great in beat and style, and it has a little bit of everything for everyone, the singing is about the same as the acting, some are great, some are okay. I've heard many people complain about lyrics not making any sense, but I don't see where the hell they're getting that from (Their rear end?). Maybe it's just me. Overall, this movie is one of my favorites, and I believe that this will be the Rocky Horror of Generation Y. I mean, just look at some of the Repo! Road Tours that have people dressed up as the characters! But the only thing that kinda brings it down is all the loving obsessed crazy fans that praise their "savior", Darren Lynn Bousman. Overall: 9.5/10 Acting: 7/10 Music: 8/10 Storyline: 9/10 KKtheGraverobber fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 6, 2009 |
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Mar 6, 2009 02:31
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Darren Lynn Bousman believes that his film Repo: The Genetic Opera is an original entry into the musical genre. He’s right. I can’t think of another musical that has an ensemble cast, thumping nu-metal score, and tons of gore. Unfortunately, an original idea does not a good film make, and Repo ends up being far less than the sum of its parts. The film wears out its welcome about 30 minutes into its 98-minute run time, leaving the viewer to be inundated with terrible singing, uneven visuals, and an incoherent story. Repo: The Genetic Opera is set in a distant future where organ transplants are financed like car loans. The film is a coming-of-age story that deals with the relationship between Shiloh (Alex Vega, Spy Kids) and her father, Nathan (Anthony Stewart Head, the Buffy TV series). The story would be simple if it stopped there, but Bousman stalls the momentum of the film with too many narratives. You see, Repo: The Genetic Opera is also a revenge story. And the story of one woman’s destructive obsession with plastic surgery. And the story of one woman’s liberation from chains that bind her. And so on and so forth. As is typical with this generation of horror films, Bousman’s ADD-style direction jumps from one narrative to the next at a moment’s notice. The concept of organ repossession isn’t even central to the plot of the film. The disjointed narrative isn’t the only problem with the story, however. For reasons only known to Bousman himself, almost every line of dialogue in the film is sung. In a grand twist of irony, the only person in the film who has any business singing, Blind Mag (opera star Sarah Brightman), has the fewest lines. Watching the rest of the actors and actresses struggle through the 64 - yes, 64 - songs in the film is likely to be one of the most painful experiences in a viewer’s movie-going life (it certainly was mine). The problem is that there are very few actual songs in the film. Many of the lines are sung simply for the sake of singing them. This stems from Bousman’s insistence on adhering to the rules of “rock operas.” Journey into the mind of a mad man with me: Talentless Hack posted:“If you look at any of those, “Rocky Horror Picture Show” has 14 songs in it, it didn’t have 64. “Sweeney Todd” had 20 songs in it, it didn’t have 64. This is a conventional opera and the majority of these things that you see are musicals. They break out into song and dance where this movie has a music thread from the very beginning to the very end and it’s all sung. The last that I’d seen anything like this is probably “Jesus Christ Superstar”, or “Tommy”. It was in the seventies that actually did full-out, full-blown rock operas and that was what inspired me as a kid. I loved rock operas. That was my thing was growing up, and that’s what I was paying homage to.” The quote above is from an interview the director did with Shock Till You Drop. Note how Bousman repeatedly acknowledges the number of musical numbers in his film. Note also how he ignores the key difference between Repo and every film he mentioned: those films are classics, destined to be performed until time immemorial. His film is a horrible pile of crap. I’ve only seen Rocky Horror Picture Show once in its entirety, yet numbers like “Time Warp” and “Touch Me” will be forever burned in my brain. Why? Because they are well-written. In the same vein, I can hum the melody to “Jesus Christ Super Star,” even though I’ve never seen the film. There’s not a single number in Repo that stays with you. There are no bright spots in this film. How can you praise a movie that casts the vocalist from Skinny Puppy and then doesn’t give him an industrial number to sing? You can’t make a great film just by doing something original. You have to have a good story behind it, too. I’m not surprised that the person responsible for the last three Saw films doesn’t understand that. Rating: 1/5 Rabid Koala fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Mar 8, 2009 |
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Mar 6, 2009 06:43
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