Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

Repo! The Genetic Opera is a groundbreaking, disturbing, and memorably impressive rock opera. I would describe it as Sin City, Brazil, Blade Runner, and Rocky Horror Picture Show meet Moulin Rouge -- with ex-splut-ational touches reminiscent of 300 and Sweeney Todd. Repo! is dark. It's often bloody. It's literally gristle-y and visceral. The premise portends a future society where designer cosmetic surgery has not only gotten under our skin but gone amok: Designer organ transplants have become more than fashionable, they are de rigeur -- esp. after customers default on even one payment and the repo man (who loves his work) pulls out a flivver before he cuts out their liver (and any number of other patented organs) while they are still alive and screaming. So, it's not your father's rock opera but it is an excellent rock opera with amazing costumes, staging, scripting, music, and so on. I was warned that getting through the first 20 minutes is the biggest challenge and I found that to be true. Unless you subsist solely on an entertainment diet of horror or slasher movies, Repo! will probably be hard to stomach until you get settled into the story line (and it settles down too). Besides, the disemboweling is theatrically staged and occasionally not depicted directly. What impresses me about Repo! is the sheer creativity behind the script, the staging, and the music. I actually want to make myself sit through it again because there's so much more to catch and savor in a second (and a third) viewing. In fact, I probably will purchase Repo! because of its science-fiction-based extrapolation of contemporary issues such as designer genes, the global financial crisis, and corporate greed. A gristly, great 5 stars.