Before I get into the actual review – let’s see if you should be reading this in the first place. I’m gonna ask you a series of questions, if you can answer “yes” to any of these, then please continue reading.

• Do you like movies?
• Do you sometimes wonder how Forest Whitaker gets cast in SciFi blockbusters that hinge on awesome action scenes (a la Species)?
• Do you kinda like being amazed at how the human body can be mutilated and distorted, and yet, still work?
• Are you suspicious of drug companies and health benefits?
• Do you like movies that are ridiculously over the top, and awesome?
• Do you like to see Liev Schrieber get kicked in the balls, just because he’s always so fucking ‘smug’?

Great! Thanks for making it this far! Let me start by saying… “SUMMER MOVIES HAVE ARRIVED!” Jude Law and Forest Whitaker(?) work for “The Unioin” (basically Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMO in Illinois) who manufacture drugs and mechanical organs to replace everyone’s failing organs. Have diabetes? Get a new pancreas. Have lung cancer? Buy a new lung, and smoke to your heart’s content. Although they didn’t show it, I’m sure there was a penis replacement. Anywhoo – they cost billions of dollars, so basically, you’re renting it until you can’t pay, and then boom – they get harvested. And by harvested, I mean they kill you, and take back the organ. Only to clean it off, and pass it off as “refurbed” to the next hapless soul. (they don’t actually show you that part of the sales pitch, but in Repo Men 2: Taking it to the Streets, I highly expect a more in-depth look at the “salesman side” of things.)

So, let me highlight the “plot points” of the movie. Jude is awesome at his job, but his bitch-wife doesn’t want him killing people to reclaim organs – even though it’s what puts that very nice roof over their heads. He TRIES to leave, but his “one last job” ends up going poorly, and *IRONY ALERT* he has to have a fake organ placed into his carcass. So… Blah Blah Blah – he ends up turning against the system that paid him so well because, along with a heart, he got a sense of morality. Oh yeah, he ends up with, I think, an ex-wife (I’m still unclear if he just hooked up with her because she was an ex- or because he like the way she was singing in a club – don’t worry, the HOW isn’t nearly as important as the *HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT* at the end of the movie). There’s some cheesy dialogue where we find out she has fake eyes, ears, throat, knee, liver, and like 7 other organs, and yet, her “lips are hers.” No shit, that made it in the final draft. So, they fuck. Then, after the fuck, they go on to fight for their freedom.

The movie ends with the classic sci-fi trope of a “database where every single bit of information is stored with no backup, and if we blow it up, we reset the clock.” Fine… Whatever gets us to some nice fight scenes, slow-mo intersperesed with superfast-mo, ending up using a hacksaw and a hammer to dispatch “bad” guys and then, dare I say it, and ending you will not have seen coming. Unless you’ve seen a movie before.

Let’s face it – this is not a date flick. It has some great action, some decent world-building (how difficult is it to build a world that is ours in 20 years? Except VW makes a kick-ass off-road/SUV/hybrid/crossover kinda vehicle) and some truly fantastic gross-out sex/organ crushing scenes. Like if Clive Baker were directing “Gone with the Wind” kinda stuff… Let me put it to you this way: When I went to see the movie, at 3 points during the film, someone exclaimed, “Oh my fucking God! That was awesome!” (I’m pretty sure it was a white person too.)

So, let’s face it – obvious allegories aside, this is a must-see movie. And by must-see, I mean, rent it from Netflix/Red Box as soon as it comes out. There’s really no reason to HAVE to go see it in the theater – unless your theater offers REAL butter on their popcorn. Then it makes for a nice night.

This post was written by Stephen Schmidt
This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm. It is filed under Movies and tagged with AI, movie review, organs, Summer Movies, wolverine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.