Once More, with Feeling: REPO! The Genetic Opera

REPO! The Genetic Opera (2008) is set in a future inhabited by surgery-addicted masses. Feeling ill? Not as beautiful as you could be? There's an operation for that. You can have the designer organs you've always wanted, but they come at a price. Miss an installment on the payment plan, and the Repo Man reclaims his company's property, be it eyes, heart, spine--the procedure is almost always fatal.

Saying it'll cost you an arm and a leg is probably an understatement.

Early hype about REPO! suggested that The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) had finally found a successor. REPO! had a surprisingly well-known ensemble cast: Anthony Head as the Repo Man himself, Alexa Vega from the Spy Kids franchise as his daughter, Paul Sorvino as owner of the GeneCo corporation, veteran horror actor Bill Moseley, famed soprano Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, even Joan Jett shows up for a cameo. Prior to REPO!'s release, all we had to judge it were a good soundtrack and a slick trailer with suitably warped visuals. After a viewing, it's clear that REPO! has much in common with the medically-altered crowds in its cast: beautiful at first glance but rotten on the inside.

The movie never lives up to its promise. What could be a great, gory, campy excursion is hamstrung by baffling writing and pacing choices. The story's weak, but that's forgivable in musicals; the problem is that instead of showing, REPO! tells, and it tells in the worst way possible--with slow, drawn-out, unvoiced, immersion-breaking storyboard sequences. What really twists the knife is that the information in the storyboards is either inconsequential, explained later in song or is obvious to the audience.

Unfortunately, the disease was boring comic strip interludes, and there was no treatment.

The film suffers from superfluous characters. Primary among these is GraveRobber, an out of place Greek chorus. It's only until REPO!'s production history is traced does his real purpose become clear. Like Rocky Horror, REPO! started life as a stage show. Its first iteration was The Necromerchant's Debt, which starred a GraveRobber played by Terrance Zdunich: He's REPO!'s writer, composer, producer and illustrator (Zdunich drew the storyboard sequences). As REPO!'s story evolved, GraveRobber remained, even after he became vestigial. It's a case of self-indulgence: The writer gives himself a role of overblown importance, and he just happens to get the most memorable songs (including one where he dry humps Paris Hilton).
 

This man truly suffers for his art.

It may sound as if I hate REPO!, but I don't. I want to like it, and it's got some standout moments: Bill Moseley angrily chews scenery as he belts out lyrics, Paul Sorvino adds gravitas to the musical performances, Anthony Head is excellent. There's a scene where he sings a duet with a corpse that he's turned into a puppet. His Repo Man is a Batman gone wrong, complete with scary Batman voice.
 

He already knows how you got all those scars.

These moments are overshadowed by the film's flaws--the show itself needs a little work done. My advice? Buy the soundtrack, arrange the songs in your preferred order, and write your own story to stitch them together. It's your chance to play surgeon!