Movie Review: Metallica Through the Never

I’ve never been to a Metallica concert, I probably never will, but this is as close as you can get for a rather affordable $16.  The movie has a loose story, the focus being a show in Vancouver and a roadie that takes a recreational pharmaceutical and has a wild, wild night.  The movie is delivered in IMAX 3D and the effect is both subtle and effective.  Hetfield, Urlich and Hammett are all larger than life in this latest entry of blending film and movie for mega-metal band Metallica and they don’t disappoint.

The story begins with Dane DeHaan’s roadie coming to work and delivering something to a stage manager, asked later to pick something up after the concert gets going.  The movie is spliced between segments of a live concert in Vancouver and DeHaan’s roadie moving through the city towards the downed truck.  On the way there, DeHaan encounters a riot, though the viewer can’t be sure it is real given that DeHaan had taken a drug of some sort prior to leaving.  The music keeps up a fevered pitch as DeHaan encounters a masked rider bent on killing him.

The reason to see this movie isn’t because the story will blow you away.  There is hardly a story at all.  To be able to see Metallica in IMAX 3D is really amazing.  Even in a smaller theatre in AMC, the walls shook with the sound and the band hasn’t lost a beat as they’ve aged.  Hetfield is quite the stage-master and Ulrich keeps the concert moving with efficiency.  If anything, the movie makes you relive the many wonderful classics you may remember and open you up to some newer music that isn’t quite like the old stuff.