Metallica Through the Never

Day four of Musical Week also falls on a Thursday. Hmmm. That is my documentary review day. Can I do it? Of course I can do it. When you think “musical” and “docuementary”, the only real cross over would be some sort of concert movie. But! There hasn’t been a sweet teen sensation concert movie for over a year. The last one was the One Direction movie.

So instead I found Metallica Through The Never. You may have guessed it already, but this concert movie/movie has a lot of Metallica music in it. And all of it comes from actual concerts that they filmed the footage at from a few concerts on one of their tours. However there is also a small story in here, clearly fictional with actors, set to Metallica songs, to give us a very strange movie hybrid.

They must have thought a regular concert documentary was boring and for teeny-boppers. So they wanted something more.

The story itself is just about a boy, Trip (Dane DeHaan), a roadie for Metallica, who kind of just has to run and get stuff. Well, during the concert, he has to go and find a package in truck that ran out of gas. Get the truck gas, so it can deliver the package that is very important, for reasons.

But chaos has broken out in the streets. Death, riots, destruction, and maybe some supernatural things as well! And who is The Rider (Kyle Thompson)? Is he the Sandman?!

I picked a concert photo so you all wouldn’t call me out on shenanigans.

I am not a huge Metallica song by any means. None of their songs are on my iPod, but I recognize the famous ones, and I know to make fun of the driver due to his anti-Napster campaigns.

Despite that, I was surprised at how many of the songs played I honestly recognized. Probably at least half of them. So that was a bonus. The music didn’t sound terrible either and it fit the story they were telling nicely.

The story itself? Well, it felt like an acid trip. No crazy colors, but all the other elements were there. At points it was terrifying, mostly it was weird, but it was definitely entertaining.

In fact, I wanted way more of the story and way less of the concert scenes. That is a terrible complaint, I know, for what amounts to a concert film. But because it is a hybrid, I expected more time focused on the story. I would guesstimate the average movie went 75% concert, 25% story.

It should go without saying that if you hate Metallica music, or the genre of music, you won’t gind any enjoyment in this movie. I thought it was a okay experience, and what I can tell, a good first effort for this fantasy concert genre.