Rock operas. I can't say I'm a fan of any manner of musical, but if I had to sit through one, it'd be the rock opera. Repo is one of the most recent examples of this genre, the most famous of which would probably be the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This film is no Rocky Horror, but it had just enough macabre to keep me interested the whole way through. It takes place fifty years from now when an organ transplant company (GeneCo) has saved humanity from an epidemic of organ failures. The catch is if you miss your payments, they send a repo man to rip the organs out of you. The surrounding world is very gothic and dark, but it only adds to the insanity of its denizens.
You'd think that a film that has to sing its way through the plot is going to have its fair share of lameduck tracks to keep the plot going. Repo has a few, but for the most part they're pretty catchy tunes. Even more surprising is the fact that just about everyone in the show can sing, Paris Hilton included (I know, I'm surprised too).
Visually, the film is quite appealing. The whole look of the world was what caught my attention when I first saw the trailer. My issue with it, is it seems the film holds back from something that could truly be a dark and gritty musical. There is a fair share of blood and gore, but it takes a back seat to the father-daughter story between Anthony Head and Alexa Vega. It's an interesting story, but having more of it take place on the streets instead of locked up in their house would have really helped draw me in. Maybe I've just been desensitized by violence, but I was somewhat underwhelmed in spite of my expectations.
It's a colorful universe being put in display for us, but I'm not entirely convinced the filmmakers took advantage of it. They introduce characters and concepts that I'd love to follow around but only appear sporadically throughout the story. It also has the disadvantage of feeling longer than it actually is. I don't dislike Repo, far from it, I think it was a well made flick that took some chances. It just didn't take enough chances in the right places and was too timid to really go for the throat. It holds up as a solid narrative and intriguing story, but I can't help feeling like something was missing from the recipe.