METALLICA: THROUGH THE NEVER (Nimród Antal). 92 minutes. Opens Friday (September 27). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNN
Coming nearly a decade after the growing pains that formed the crux of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s superb behind-the-scenes doc Some Kind Of Monster, Metallica: Through The Never feels like a palate cleanser. It shows the band in peak form, working through hits like Fade To Black, Master Of Puppets and Fuel.
Like Bruce McDonald’s This Movie Is Broken, the film awkwardly sutures a fictional narrative onto performance footage: a Metallica roadie (Dane DeHaan) is dispatched on a fetch quest during the concert. That plot’s ostensible tension between protesters and riot police is totally bogus. It’s also distracting, especially when director Nimród Antal’s concert footage is so crisply choreographed. (Even the 3D works.)
Similarly off-putting: the consistent focus on James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the certifiable egomaniacs at the centre of the band. Why cut away from Kirk Hammett during a solo to focus on Hetfield’s strained, taking-a-dump facial expression?
As in all things Metallica, it feels like the band’s unlikeable founders had final cut.
