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Guest Reviews of Repo
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 9:57 am by Jami
Most of us will have to wait for the DVD to come out, but as it turns out, two Angry Zen Minions have actually seen Repo! The Genetic Opera.
Our first guest review comes from Angry Zen Minion Tyler Anderson:
It’s a big steaming bowl of meh. And while I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t particularly like Paris Hilton or any of the Saw films, I had at least a little bit of hope for this having some good music. Nope. And unfortunately, the presence of Paris Hilton is part of what makes it so terrible. There are several good actors in this film whose careers will hopefully not suffer as a result. And I see now why there are only a handful of available music numbers online. The movie is almost entirely an actual opera in the sense that they sing almost everything. But sadly everything you’ve seen online is basically the extent of what’s enjoyable. Almost all of the pertinent exposition is done via comic book styled panels. In my opinion, it’s not worth seeing. Watching this movie should somehow be featured as one of the tortures of the next Saw movie.
Yikes! Let’s see what Angry Zen Minion Brian Dirk has to say about the Repo:
Hey!
Figured I Would pass along a Repo! review, since I was lucky enough to see it here in Las Vegas.
Just figured I’d pass along a review of Repo! The Genetic Opera.
It is necessary to say at the get go: if you can’t handle gore: don’t see Repo! Pretty much every major plot element has some sort of macabre or gory moment associated with it. The viscera adds to the fun factor, but my wife had to close her eyes at some of the worst bits.
Anthony Stewart Head is *brilliant* as the Repo Man, and his transformation from killer to conflicted family man and back in several scenes is nothing short of magical. Paris Hilton rocks the house down as her character. To be honest, she was type-cast, and it worked well for this picture. The supporting cast, what little performances they had, were spot on as well. There were moments where Alexa Vega didn’t fully own the suspension of disbelief necessary to carry some of the more outlandish plot elements of the movie. But overall, her performance was decent: and her interaction with Anthony Head felt very genuine.
I really wished this had been a two hour movie (it is roughly 90 minutes). Some of the cuts from scene to scene felt very rushed, and some plot elements seemed to have been compressed or not fully fleshed out. This made me a little sad, as I would have sat through another 30 minutes to an hour of the movie to get some satisfaction on these points. Even despite these roadblocks, the story still maintains enough power and force to keep the viewer enthralled to the bloody (literally) end.
The soundtrack is pervasive and exceptional. The songs that have a defined length are catchy and fun, yet also expository and develop the characters. The characters, however, sing nearly all their lines: which makes some of the more mundane moments of the movie sound like they were attempting Gregorian chants in English. Unfortunately the theatre I saw Repo! in forgot two things about awesome rock music: 1.) Rock the Bass! 2.) Turn it up! So the music didn’t have the fullest impact it could for my audience. Fortunately I bought the soundtrack from I-Tunes and was able to hear the songs with full impact later.
All in all, Repo! is a grand experience full of campy fun. It is fun to see, fun to talk to your friends about, and fun to listen to the sound track on your way to work.
Now that sounds like something to see with a bunch of friends!
So there you have it. AZM, fair and balanced for once. I suspect that people will either really love this movie or absolutely hate this movie. Audrey already rolls her eyes when I tell her to check out my posts about Repo. I think I’ll still check this out on DVD when it drops. The closest showing to me is this Friday in Pittsburgh. I’m not that hardcore unfortunately.
