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slowsculptureTonight, I finally got out to see Repo: The Genetic Opera. It's a gory, gothy rock-opera making limited rounds in theaters right now. Its producers are hoping to create a Rocky Horror-style cult classic by offering an underserved audience something new and bold, and while I don't totally follow their reasoning, I'd been wanting to see it. With that chore out of the way, I can give it my usual three-word review: Bring a walkman. It's a feast for the eyes, and a pack of McNuggets for the brain.
The story is very weak - too complicated for a musical, and too simple to justify the huge cast put on screen to tell it - but that really isn't the impediment it could be, since the story is clearly given a back seat to the music, cinematography, costumes, dancing, makeup, casting, sets, hand props... you get the idea. The presentation is very pretty, there's a good musical number near the beginning, and there's one deliciously suspenseful splatter scene near the end. But beyond that, the movie is as tedious as a two-hour music video should be, with no clues as to what it's building up to, and no one scene willing to take a backseat to another.
Alexa Vega and Anthony Stewart Head's father/daughter pair of lead roles make up the biggest problem. For Alexa Vega's lead, neither the character written nor the performance she gave made sense to the story, and the two wrongs did not make a right. Like the rest of the cast, the two are forced to sing all of the exposition and dialogue the writers saddled them with, and even a broadway vet like Head can't make it look natural, here. And since the two can't make their characters come to life, the audience just doesn't have much stake in what happens to anyone. By the midpoint of the movie, it's obvious that no one involved knows how to write a musical, but they're damned well not going to let anybody speak a line.
It all piles up in a ridiculous, full-cast ending where the writers cram in whole new twists to not resolve, and even remember that they meant to write a moral into the story, before they got distracted with the choreography. In the final accounting, it's a movie that spares no expenses, pulls no punches and still manages to look half-assed.
If it's going through your town, do check it out. Seeing this movie on a small screen just wouldn't be the same. But feel free to wander out for a smoke break any time. The characters, and the story, will still be right where you left them.
The story is very weak - too complicated for a musical, and too simple to justify the huge cast put on screen to tell it - but that really isn't the impediment it could be, since the story is clearly given a back seat to the music, cinematography, costumes, dancing, makeup, casting, sets, hand props... you get the idea. The presentation is very pretty, there's a good musical number near the beginning, and there's one deliciously suspenseful splatter scene near the end. But beyond that, the movie is as tedious as a two-hour music video should be, with no clues as to what it's building up to, and no one scene willing to take a backseat to another.
Alexa Vega and Anthony Stewart Head's father/daughter pair of lead roles make up the biggest problem. For Alexa Vega's lead, neither the character written nor the performance she gave made sense to the story, and the two wrongs did not make a right. Like the rest of the cast, the two are forced to sing all of the exposition and dialogue the writers saddled them with, and even a broadway vet like Head can't make it look natural, here. And since the two can't make their characters come to life, the audience just doesn't have much stake in what happens to anyone. By the midpoint of the movie, it's obvious that no one involved knows how to write a musical, but they're damned well not going to let anybody speak a line.
It all piles up in a ridiculous, full-cast ending where the writers cram in whole new twists to not resolve, and even remember that they meant to write a moral into the story, before they got distracted with the choreography. In the final accounting, it's a movie that spares no expenses, pulls no punches and still manages to look half-assed.
If it's going through your town, do check it out. Seeing this movie on a small screen just wouldn't be the same. But feel free to wander out for a smoke break any time. The characters, and the story, will still be right where you left them.