Review of Metallica: Through the Never (2013) by Steven W — 29 Apr 2014

I remember seeing the trailer to Through The Never in the theatre and thinking to myself "Man this is going to be laaaaaame". As it turns out I was dead wrong. Somewhere in the mid 2000's Metallica simply ceased to be relevant, and this project seemed like proof that they just didn't get that time had passed them by.

While I don't really consider them interesting anymore musically, I still had to give them respect for allowing the creative implosion they suffered during the recording of St Anger to be both filmed and released. The movie "Some Kind of Monster" ripped off the facade of a band that is supposed to be heavy, edgy, and cool, and showed them as weak, narcissitic, selfish, and as former bassist Jason Newsted remarked in the film "lame". That they allowed this to be released is again amazing, I don't think I would have the balls to let my fans see me like that. If they had released some amazing albums after the fact it would have been one of the greatest stories in music save maybe the Beatles. Sadly though they just haven't pushed the envelope musically and rather than breaking new ground they have just been aging.

So the trailer to this movie set off warning bells, "a combination action movie/concert film????" Didn't they get that they are just not that cool anymore???

This movie proves to me that they do get that. They know those days are behind them, and Through The Never is alot more about the legacy of Metallica and alot less about the future.

First off this is a concert film straight through, the thin story of some roadies mission to pick something up for the band is pointless. It's occasionally visually interesting but takes up less than 10% of the film, and lacks any sort of compelling narrative.

The genius of the movie is that in it Metallica rolls out the crown jewels of thrash metal during a state of the art stage show. While they play a couple of the more mainstream hits most of the set list rests on the heavy stuff that generated platinum albums with no radio airplay in the 80's and 90's. The first song is Creeping Death and the movie ends with a wicked cool rendition of Orion which the band plays alone in an empty stadium.

If you don't understand the signifigance of that last sentence then this movie will probably not be for you. However if you grew up being threatened with being sent to therapy for listening to this stuff then this is most definately for you.

This a movie for the people that were there at the time. A respectful nod to the people that made Metallica what it is. The musical subtext will surely be lost on the last couple generations but thats ok, this isn't for them, it's for us.