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This is another one of these "Why the @$#% did I rent this?" deals. I have no recommendations to see it out there, what few clips I've seen of it really did not strike me as something I want to watch, and it's pretty darn obscure. Mainly it's just that I'm watching bad movies for other people's schadenfreude lately, and I'm generally up for watching any musical, much like I'll watch any space opera. They need encouraging. "This" in this case being Repo: The Genetic Opera. Incidentally, this is one of those DVDs that frontloads all the previews, which I hate. It's a good thing that DVD previews aren't necessarily relevant to the feature (unlike what theater previews try for) because there's one on here for Saw 4 AND for Saw 5. Ugh. And now we're at the menu which... is really just awesome looking, but time is short, so let's watch this sucker.
OK, we start off with this non-narrated comic book intro telling us ow this movie takes place "In the Not-Too Distant Future" presumably somewhere in time and space... and, wow, this is actually some surprisingly dense plot-dumping here. Uh... short version is, cyberpunky setting, kind of a Bioshock vibe, evil pharmaceutical companies make drugs from dead people after sending people to repossess their cloned organs (necessary due to massive world-wide organ failure) when they miss payments on them. Because yeah, that's totally a great plot for a musical. Anyway, the comic book out of the way, we now have the plot summed up again, in a very Danny Elfman sounding musical number. Not so much the musical style of Danny Elfman mind you, this guy just has a similar voice. Also, wow, that's pretty gory. And that's just a really really visually awesome cityscape, wow. What is it with crazy musicals and totally awesome visual styles?
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So uh... Evil Muttonchopped Business Man is having a meeting with his Matrix-Girl bodyguards and a mime, when his doctor comes in to tell him he's terminally ill, so they shoot the doctor. I don't know why there was a mime just kinda around. Anyway, EMBM is now kinda singing, in a style reminding me some of The Picard Song, while some girl sneaks into a mausoleum trying to catch a scorpion and possibly harvest some ADAM. Danny Elfman is also here... and yeah, they are totally harvesting ADAM! Wow! Oh, and then the cops catch Danny Elfman because he's singing so loudly. Well, chase anyway. Also, I feel I should point out that Danny Elfman here has this major Yoshitaka Amano drawing look going on. Femmy goth with really long hair and nice dress sense. Missing 20 pounds of jewelry and a totally awesome hat though to complete the look.
Also, this entire seen appears to have possibly been a dream sequence of the girl there, who, now that I get a better look at her face actually looks quite a bit like my cousin Kristin. Anyway, she's apparently horribly diseased... and we're suddenly back in comic book mode. Anyway, her dad's all angsty about how he couldn't kill his Ill Wife's disease and just barely managed to save unborn Ill Daughter. He expresses this angst by rocking out in the general direction of the huge number of holograms of wifey all over his mansion. I'm actually really really digging the visual style of this movie, as I'm sure I've mentioned, and the music's been pretty consistently good thus far too. Shame the plot is kinda ridiculous and non-existent. Anyway, he's kind of a mad scientist apparently.
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Transitioning via amusing organ jingle across town, we suddenly switch to the heirs to Gene Co. arguing over their inheritance via excessively profane song, while juggling a heart, and all kinds of wacky slapstick sound effects go on. Yeah, that was weird. Also, comics and song once again appear to explain how EMBM (who doesn't actually have mutton chops but totally has that sort of look) was involved in a love triangle with Mad Scientist's wife and is responsible for her death. Now he's meeting with her daughter (Kristin). Apparently she's to be the pawn in some evil scheme of his, bribed with a potential cure for her "blood disease."
Now switching right over to a new character, clearly the repo man, disembowling someone, in another weird wacky gory scene. Oh, and he's using the dead deadbeat like a hand puppet while he sings. If it isn't clear yet, this movie really is generally holding true to the opera bit. I don't recall any moments of non-song dialog thus far, unless you count commercials on TVs in the background, or textual exposition. Anyway though, apparently the fighting heirs here are putting on regular televised plays within the play here. Oh, and Kristin's dad actually is an organ repo man. Also a kind concerned father, as this phone call in the middle of gutting someone shows. Man. At this point I'm fully prepared to recommend this movie to, like, 2 people. "If you liked Moulin Rouge and Evil Dead 2, and actually want both of those at the same time." Also, wow. You know what I was saying about Kefka Elfman before? Yeah, now he just needs the hat. It's really impressive to see someone pulling of this kind of look. Only other time I've seen it was some really fantastic FF6 cosplayers I saw, of all places, at a concert hall when Yasunori Mitsuda was touring the country.
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Anyway though, Kefka Elfman is pretty darn charismatic all things considered, what with how he apparently is a black market surgeon/pimp/harvester of ADAM who everyone just calls Grave Robber. I'm pretty much giving up on conveying the plot of this thing at this point, but you'll probably be able to piece it together from my ramblings. I have to say though, while this is a really weird movie, and I can't think of anyone who could come up with this, I can totally name a dozen or so people I know fairly well, who don't know each other, but if they ever all ended up in the same room, this here would be a possible result. There's very much of a vibe of a bunch of college kids getting this collective consciousness stream thing going on that comes out as this giant pile of insanity that comes off totally rational.
So uh, anyway, yeah, there's some plot here. Repo dad refuses to cut out the eyes of the opera diva who was his dead wife's best friend, and she's taking refuge in her house and Kristin is begging to harbor her there so nobody else can come and do it. The eyes in question are functional hologram projectors too by the way. Also, Repo Dad kinda looks like Billybob Thornton. Just throwing that out there. Oh, and now we just kinda have this here filler song, which is breaking reality all music video style and involves a singing dancing muppet and a guitar playing skeleton. The topic of this song is that Kristin is 17. No, this doesn't make any sense in context either, but hey, dancing muppet!
So... have I mentioned that the bad guys in this movie run a biotech company/opera house? Seriously, that's just bizarre. Not even like they're two separate interests either. It's a package deal. Also, suddenly there's a fight scene! So yeah, Repo Dad here kinda reminds me of the main character from Shenmue. He's this totally nice happy caring guy 95% of the time, but then tosses out the occasional fit of savage violence. So anyway, yeah, we're heading into climax territory, as is obvious from every character singing a big ol' medley of songs with overlapping choruses. Oh, and random boobs for half a second. Hey Repo, didn't you get the memo? You were supposed to have done that back in paragraph 3!
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So anyway, EMBM is cashing in his hole card by telling Kristin she'll get a cure to her disease if she takes out the Repo Man she doesn't know is actually her dad. Also, there's a minor scandal in the play within the play because one of the singers' faces falls off. Also, it kinda sucks how Kefka Elfman has more or less fallen out of the movie. He's the best singer (or at least gets the best songs) and has a really awesome look going, but he just has nothing at all to do with anything plot wise. Oh yeah, and apparently EMBM has Consumption, because someone has to. Oh, and the diva just ripped her own eyes out right before being impaled on a fence. That was kinda out of left field. I mean, that sort of thing happening makes plenty of sense narrative wise, but in context it's totally arbitrary.
Now, by this point we're in full-blown tragedy mode. Like, we're heading for an everyone is lying around center stage dead. Except for Kefka Elfman presumably, he's safely more or less out of the movie and all. And... a few minutes later, we seem to be down to just Kristin here. Apparently she wasn't sickly at all, Repo Dad just had the whole Munchausen by Proxie thing going on. So, when everyone else just kinda ends up dead, she just wanders off. Then Kefka Elfman sings us out... and wait, did those lyrics just say "and a mighty dumb plot?" That's surprisingly honest if they did. Oh yeah, and then there's a comic book style epilogue about which of the heirs gets the company, but I don't think anyone in particular cares. Also, the credits here just kinda go and list "Ogre" at one point. Not like Ogre played by so and so, or so and so played by Ogre. Just, "Ogre." Baffling. The best explanation I can think of is that the big guy from Revenge of the Nerds was just kinda hanging around while they were filming or something.
Anyway, uh... yeah. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this sucker. Looked neat, sounded fairly neat, generally totally incoherent, and seriously, that was a REALLY gory one, which is going to turn off a lot of the musical going crowd. I'm going to have to say that an awful lot of really talented people got together here and collaborated on an incoherent mess. I'd rather like to see some of those people doing more coherent things though, especially whoever is responsible for the overall visual style, because again, I dig.
