[review] Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

6/10

Director:  Darren Lynn Bousman

Writers: Darren Smith (screenplay) &

Terrance Zdunich (screenplay)

[[random trivia: Repo! The Genetic Opera was a stage play before it was a stage play before it was adapted to the screen. I mean wasn't a play that has been traveling forever like Phantom of the Opera]]

So,
to begin Repo! The Genetic Opera is a really fun movie. No matter what is said from her on out I believe that you should watch it. However I'm requesting that you follow very specific guidelines.

1. Find the Movie Somewhere [preferably somewhere where the people involved get dividends]
2. Now, watch the film, but for best results don't stop and start get comfortable.
3. Watch it again [not necessarily consecutively cause your eyes will need repossession  [movie joke]]
4. [optional-watch it thrice]
5. One of those times you have to watch it with subtitles. The lyrics and lines tell you so much about the characters and the way that they think you loose a lot just from not hearing things. 
6. Read this mans amazing film analysis. This guy saved my ass when it came to the analysis i'm working on for it now. [Although he did spell one of the character's names wrong instead of Shilo he spelled it Shia but that happens.] http://www.wkyt.com/blogs/directorschair/51481332.html

What is Repo! The Genetic Opera?
Its hard to explain on paper [internet?] because a sci fi movie musical thriller sounds like complete shhh when you think about it unrelated to what was done with this movie.  Now when you pull back the layers of cultural acceptance Repo! is on one level just hot-ass-music-to-rock-out-to, a discussion on our cultures growing lack of self-asteem, on another level the traps placed on women of all ages, and on a really deep level the importance of a world with a mother's influence [specifically in the US cause it's a US film].
So instead of me explaining the movie this trailer will....

.... This movie is really has many good qualities

• it's just beautifully directed
• the music is like epic just because
• the characters have a lot of depth to them [unlike some films *cough*Avatar*cough*]
• it's beautifully choreographed
• the acting is phenomenal [even Paris Hilton] 

Now I'd bet the imaginary 5 million dollars I keep in my pockets for hypothetical bets that the average person hates musicals and musical films, specifically ones with real people and not disney cartoons. You're not alone. When I'm watching a movie. I'm getting into the film like the dialogue and I hear that effffing music swell up in the background I want to string along a whole five minute curse at the movie for just destroying the scene. But... that's the difference between Repo! and other movies in the musical film genre cause it's an opera.

There’s a grey area when it comes to distinguishing opera and musical theatre.
Musical theatre generally has spoken dialogue with musical numbers inserted in between.
Opera, instead, uses a style of writing dialogue on specific pitches, called recitative, making the entire piece more sung through .                                                                           http://www.coc.ca/ExploreAndLearn/NewToOpera/OnlineLearningCentre/OperaBasics.aspx

This operatic approach musically doesn't make you to die every time the music starts. You also never wonder if the film would have been better with out the music. BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T HAVE. The music tells you a lot about the characters even if the songs I don't really love all that much


Now Issues the bread and butter of reviews, 
Three seems to be a good number... for me there are three big issues for me in this film

1. The story progression. Now this has nothing to do with the way the story ends. I feel like the ending fits but I feel like there's definitely some missing information and I feel like its too much information to hide under the guise of creative control. I just don't think they thought about it. Now I can't tell you what I feel is missing because depending on what characters you identify with the small information for me may be inflated to large proportions for you. Also I think that my second issue with the film explains this one.
2. The world. The world created within this film isn't the issue. It's quite believable [considering we kinda live in it]. Allow me to explain.In my creative writing class I wrote a story that was somewhat similar to this one [although I had never seen this film] and my teachers issue with my story was that I didn't explain the world well enough. She thought I had written well but needed to be fleshed out. I feel that with Repo! a little bit. I would like to reiterate that this is a very nit picky thing for me. So the world was believable but like in the year 2056 where's the internet or commercials, protesters, and how does our evil villain Rotti Largo deal with politicians?
3. Repetition. For me, and I echo "this one a--hole's opinion," the move repeats a lot of little things for example the scenes and songs that are my favorite [and that I fee were written the best] were ones where Repo Man doesn't announce his repo-manness and where the words Genetics and Heredity aren't randomly forced into the songs. At the beginning your like I get it "nice theme guys" then it's like really "come one now." I should reiterate though that although there is repetition the repetition is hot. By which I mean the repetition gets annoying but your still nodding you head to the songs.

Now [your almost done]
Because I'm me, I have to talk about race and gender. This film is really interesting to me because race and gender overlap a lot. There's no black people int he film that have any kind of a role. There's a lot of random black background people. Which is fine in a movie where a guy comes and take people's organs out. But what I noticed here is that there's a lot of naked women's bodies which I'm fine with I think because this movie has such a good moral about the importance of women that the half naked women are fine. But what's cool for me as a black person and a black woman [although I'm not crazy hot like the women in this movie] is that the black women aren't subserviently sexy. Black women are always considered less attractive than white women and  this feeling is either expressed by having really hot black women near less attractive white women,  making the black woman look really ugly in some way[avatar],  making her a monster, or by basic unattractive circumstances . So I liked that.... specifically because of what the message of the film was. I'm going to stop before I start ranting about really specific things I'm going to save that for the film analysis.

And unlike the one I was suppose to write for the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus it's going to happen. ahha.

Peace Out
[also: I've only seen a few musicals so my hatred of ALLL of them my not be valid so if you know of any good ones comment. ]