'Repo! The Genetic Opera' review

Paris Hilton (Credit: Steve Wilkie/Lionsgate)

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In a post-apocalyptic future, biotech company GeneCo gets rich and gains political influence by marketing surgery as a fashion statement. GeneCo ensures that if transplant patients can’t pay, their organs will be repossessed by any means necessary. Sheltered teen Shilo (Alexa Vega) finds herself drawn into the center of the corrupt world thanks to a longtime rivalry between her father (Anthony Stewart Head) and GeneCo’s CEO (Paul Sorvino).

The buzz: It’s not every week (or month, or year) that a studio offers up a sung-through musical from the director of two “Saw” sequels (Darren Lynn Bousman) co-starring a tabloid princess (Paris Hilton, appropriately cast as an irresponsible heiress hoochie addicted to drugs and plastic surgery). With a limited release plan targeting only a handful of cities, it’s clear the strategy is to connect with cult movie fans. That’s probably wise considering the relatively small audience for the last movie to mix music with graphic violence: Tim Burton’s impeccably made “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

The verdict: The boldly stylized “Repo!” deserves points for showing some guts (literally—organs are ripped out of bodies) in a year of bland musicals like “Mamma Mia!” and “High School Musical 3.” And as convoluted apocalyptic visions go, at least the intent is freaky fun rather than the pretentious political statements of “Southland Tales.” It’s just too bad the music’s so one-note, the lyrics don’t range beyond coarse or banal and Bousman didn’t fill the cast with particularly talented or interesting singers. The exceptions: the very game Head and a beguiling Sarah Brightman in a standout supporting turn.

Did you know? It’s not clear if this was part of her contract but Hilton volunteered to supply some of her character’s wardrobe to help with the film’s low budget.

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