Review: Metallica: Through the Never

by Trevor Kirkendall
★★★

Disclaimer: I am a Metallica fan. I will probably not be able to keep my bias out of this review as much as I would like but I’ll try. I’ve loved this band since I was in high school and continued to listen to their music despite some negative publicity in the late 90s/early 2000s where half their fans bailed on them (that would be the Napster lawsuit). While my iPod may not be constantly tuned to their music like my CD player was in 1999, I still do like this band very much. My favorite concert going experience was seeing these guys in Rockingham, NC in 2000 on the Summer Sanitarium Tour – from the front row no less. And now they have a movie.

There’s no denying that Metallica – comprised of lead singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo – is one of the biggest bands in the world. Whether you love them or hate them, they’re enormously popular. When you’ve sold as many albums as they have, sell out concerts all over the world and continue to inspire new generations of musicians, what’s left to do? Fans such as myself would say, “make a new album!” But, alas, that’s still another year or two away. Instead, Metallica have entered the realms of film.

“Metallica: Through the Never” is a little more than just a concert documentary. I suppose when the band was approached with the idea of doing something like this, they must have said that they didn’t want the movie to feature just them playing for 90 minutes; something else was needed. After all, why charge your fans admission to a movie when you could just make this a straight to DVD release? Metallica already have numerous DVD releases. The extra bit of pizzazz that was added was a short fictional narrative that plays a secondary role to the concert footage.

The narrative follows Trip (Dane DeHaan), a young roadie for Metallica on this tour. The movie opens with Trip arriving to the arena via skateboard and passing by each member of Metallica on his way inside. The band takes the stage as Trip watches and sings along. He’s quickly pulled from the arena and asked to run an errand. He’s tasked with finding a truck belonging to the road crew that’s run out of gas. He’s to bring the truck a tank of gas and bring it back to the arena; there’s something very important in the truck that the band needs tonight.

Trip heads out into a surprisingly vacant downtown. He soon finds himself in the middle of a massive riot full of masked and hooded people going up against the police. The rioters appear to be lead by a masked horseman who, for some reason, has it in for Trip.

The narrative, written by director Nimród Antal along with each member of Metallica, is quite loose and doesn’t seem to follow any real type of guidance. Trip doesn’t say a whole lot and he doesn’t have to either. He’s seemingly walking through the city streets in a confused daze. His reactions are similar to what the audience will probably be thinking as they watch the events unfold throughout the night: “what the hell?”

For once, I’ll give a film a free pass for having a shaky and uninspired screenplay. That’s because the only reason for seeing this movie is Metallica. If the band wanted to release this as just a concert film with no other narrative, it would have been fine, but it would have been just another concert DVD to watch on your tiny TV in your living room. The narrative is chaotic enough that it works well within the confines of the band’s music and stage show.

Metallica pulls out all the stops for this show. The stage upon which they play is one of the most impressive I’ve seen. They’re standing on several LCD panels that project images as they play. They also bring along their signature light and pyro show. Props that resemble images from the band’s back catalogue appear from time to time. The props conjure up images from the album covers of Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice For All. They bring out a setlist full of their greatest hits that will surely leave any Metallica fan nodding their head to the tunes.

Director Antal captures the concert in a near-flawless fashion. Filming in IMAX 3D is a difficult thing to do already, but it becomes even more of a challenge when you only have one shot to get the entire thing right. Antal handles this difficult task with great ease. The film is immersive in every sense. The fact that this is an IMAX 3D film is what makes it work so well. It comes off as more of an experience than your typical concert film. Had this been a straight to DVD release, the whole size and scope of this production would be lost.

“Metallica: Through the Never” is a lot of fun if you’re a Metallica fan. Even a causal Metallica fan who only knows the songs typically played on the radio will get a kick out of this. Nothing beats watching Metallica from the front row, but if you’ve never had that opportunity, this will be a very doable alternative. Plus your ears won’t ring for a week after the movie ends.