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Repo! The Genetic Opera Review

Writer's picture: Connor ColtraneConnor Coltrane

By: Connor Coltrane


Is there a price that can be put on a human life? One might argue that the healthcare system thinks so, and this mentality has certainly won out in the world of Repo! The Genetic Opera. This 2008 movie musical (adapted from the 2002 stage play by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich) portrays a dystopian future in which mass organ failures have left almost everyone in the world in need of transplants. The good news is that the biotech corporate giant GeneCo has developed synthetic organs that can restore anyone to full health and further, turning surgery into the hot new fashion. The bad news is that GeneCo’s is so powerful in its monopoly that if anyone who owes them a debt (that is, almost anybody) fails to pay them, their professional surgeon-assassin known as the Repo Man can legally hunt them down and harvest their bodies as collateral.  


As you can likely guess, this is not a musical for the weak of stomach. This film offers gore a-plenty from the Repo Man’s victims cutting vivisected to pay their debts. However, that’s not the true focus of the story. Rather, the main story focuses on Shilo Wallace (played by Alexa Vega), a seventeen-year-old girl with a rare, deadly blood illness that killed her mother before she was born and kept her cooped up in her father’s home all her life. When her frustration and wanderlust drive her to leave the confines of home, however, she finds herself embroiled in a sordid web of intrigue involving her parents, the Repo Man and the history of GeneCo itself. 

This movie commits very hard to its gothic aesthetic (or, at least, the 2000s idea of gothic). Sometimes this severely dates it, as with the extremely cheesy CGI used for the future cityscape. Sometimes it holds up incredibly well today, especially the aforementioned gore effects. Sometimes it’s really a matter of taste, such as the incredibly edgy costumes or the de-saturated cinematography that makes the whole movie look like a Paramore or Evanescence music video. 


And it really is a music video, make no mistake. This isn’t like a musical with songs for major story beats and dialogue as connective tissue. It really is a full-blown rock opera from beginning to end. It’s elements like this that make the movie rather divisive. People without a particular draw to these aesthetics are likely to find themselves quite alienated from this movie. However, would I recommend anyone who’s in doubt try it? Yes, absolutely! 


The acting, while sometimes cheesy by virtue of being sung in constant rock opera, manages to still be rather compelling. The visuals, while they take some getting used to, are an absolute treat. The soundtrack is a mixed bag, but it features enough bops and bangers to listen to again and again. And underneath it all, there are some surprisingly fascinating themes, not only on the advancement of biotech and its potential future use, but also on the nature of heredity, family and whether one’s fate is determined by one’s genes. 


It is for all of these reasons that I absolutely adored this movie and rate it four and a half Little Glass Vials out of five. 

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