Repo! The Genetic Opera is a fucking weird rock opera starring Alexa PenaVega, Paul Sorvino, Ogre, Paris Hilton, Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, Bill Moseley, and Terrance Zdunich.
In a dark, dystopian future with a color palette that's kinda midway between Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, people buy designer organs from GeneCo. GeneCo is our token all-powerful, evil corporation, under the control of Rotti Largo (Sorvino) and his three gleefully evil children, Luigi (Moseley), Amber (Hilton), and Pavi (Ogre). Life is cheap, the Largos murder with impunity, and the rich go to GeneCo to see the Genetic Opera, headlined by Blind Mag (Brightman). Out on the streets, if you fail to make your organ payments, expect a visit from the mysterious Repo Man, a masked killer who will literally repossess whatever you bought from GeneCo (presumably for reuse).
A young woman named Shilo (PenaVega), suffering from a blood disease that prevents her from leaving the house, leaves the house and winds up nearly getting shot up by GeneCo's thugs for being in a cemetery after dark (oh, right, there's a drug called Zydrate that can be harvested from the bodies of the dead), but is saved by our erstwhile narrator the Grave Robber (Zdunich, who also co-wrote the screenplay). Turns out Shilo's father Nathan (Head) is a doctor working for GeneCo...as the Repo Man! There's a long, complicated history between Largo, Nathan, Blind Mag, and Shilo's mother Marni (Sarah Power) that all comes to a head at the Genetic Opera.
The story is almost a tragedy, but not quite. Shilo ends the story free of both her father and Largo, and Amber seems to have stepped up as the head of GeneCo, with the slight implication that things may change. With all of that said, the meat of the story is classically tragic. The worldbuilding is intricate and just weird, but in a good way, and it seems pretty internally consistent. Plotlines continue cropping up until pretty late into the story and there are dramatic revelations all the way through; honestly it feels very much like a game of A Tragedy in Five Acts (Shilo is the Daughter, Nathan is the Parent, Mag is the Foil, Largo is the Authority, and...I guess you could call Marni the Lover?), what with the way that scene progression feels a little disjointed and, again, new information and characters crop up a lot.
But, honestly, the movie is a trip. The actors chew scenery like it's slathered in maple syrup, because you can't not. They cast people who can sing, which helps immensely. Anthony Head has a nice Jekyll and Hyde thing going between Nathan and the Repo Man, and Alexa PenaVega does a nice job of not letting Shilo be nothing but a little girl lost (she's actually pretty manipulative at times, and has a full-on rebellion song complete with a cameo from Joan Jett). Everything is larger than life, but it's opera, so it should be.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high, maybe?
Next up: Reservoir Dogs
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