By Monk
One of the unique attributes of heavy metal, compared to other musical genres, has always been its ability not to take itself too seriously, to be self-deprecating and poke fun at itself (often in a way in which only genre insiders understand), to play upon some of the extreme aspects of its more ridiculous, and ridiculed, tendencies, especially as perceived by those outside the “metal family”. Over the years, this has been no truer than on the silver screen, with movies such as ‘Spinal Tap’, ‘Wayne’s World’ and ‘School Of Rock’ evoking all of these qualities, alongside an outsider’s perceived sense of the form’s faux seriousness, all the while with their tongues planted in their cheeks and a message of “the joke’s on you” to “mainstream” audiences. We can now add teen comedy-drama ‘Metal Lords’ to that canon of cinematic interpretations.
Written by producer D.B. Weiss, co-creator of ‘Game Of Thrones’, and co-produced by Tom Morello, ‘Metal Lords’ is essentially an archetypal movie trope, the story of three teenage misfits thrown together by circumstances of fate. At the centre of the story is the typical high school, Kevin (Jaeden Martell), who escapes his life of bullying through his love of drumming, which leads him to hook up with another outsider, Hunter (Adrian Greensmith), who has only two passions in life – heavy metal and his desire to follow in the footsteps of his hero via his post-death metal band, Skullfucker. As the pair slowly bond, they embark on a mission to emulate Hunter’s hero, Troy Nix, and win the school’s revived Battle Of The Bands competition; but, of course, they have a small problem – they need a bass player.
Which is where the third central player (sic) comes into the story: the demure and completely un-metal Emily (Isis Hainsworth), whom Kevin meets through their mutual involvement in the school’s marching band… until she tries to impale the musical director with a clarinet and calls him a cunt. Yep, you can sort of see where this one is gonna go…
Now, I don’t want to give too much of the storyline away here, and it has to be said that most of the “plot twists” are fairly mundane and predictable (Kevin and Emily fall in love, Kevin gives up on metal to join another band, there’s a running feud with the school jocks, Hunter gets sent to rehab to get over his addiction to metal, has an unexpected encounter with his aforesaid hero but everything ends happily ever after – well, sort of). But, there are enough running jokes and metallic memes – such as a brilliantly camp cameo by Rob Halford and Hunter’s classroom explosion – to retain interest throughout this entertaining and light-hearted offering, And, as expected, it does have a killer soundtrack.
- ‘Metal Lords’ is currently streaming on Netflix.
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