Iron Maiden Flight: 666, directed by Toronto’s Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, asks viewers to get on board for the most adventurous tour in rock history. Now if only McFadyen and Dunn approached filmmaking with the same spirit.[briefbreak]
The duo is responsible for a growingly impressive filmography of heavy metal examinations, starting with their breakout documentary Metal: A Headbangers’ Journey and followed by Global Metal. They used these films as calling cards to get green light access to film Iron Maiden’s Somewhere Back In Time Tour, a 50,000 mile globe-circumventing journey (23 concerts on five continents in 45 days) that culminates with a date at the Air Canada Centre.
Interest in heavy metal documentaries is arguably at an all-time high right now after the unprecedented success of Sasha Gervasi’s Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a monster hit on the film fest circuit that managed to grab mainstream audiences. The winning element to Gervasi’s film was no mystery: humanity. The relationship and history between Steve and Robb touched audiences and went far beyond a story of band desperate to realize their dreams.
This is why you can’t but help feel Flight 666 could have been so much more than a rote fan pleaser. McFadyen and Dunn struggle to get any kind of human element out of their subjects. For all the excess footage of lunatic South American fans swarming hotels, buses, stadiums rocked in Japan, and singer Bruce Dickinson piloting the aircraft, there’s little to nothing of the members actually interacting with each other.
It’s not even clear from the film that Iron Maiden spend any time together outside the stage, except for the occasional golf course session between Dave Murray and Nicko McBrain – by far the liveliest member of this seemingly road-weary crew. Even the usually theatrical Dickinson, who captains the mammoth Iron Maiden jetliner around the world, is disappointingly workmanlike about the whole situation.
To be fair, the disgusted look on Maiden’s faces when Dunn and McFadyen show up with their cameras at the tour’s kickoff says a lot about the situation. Maiden are clearly not accustomed to going outside their comfort zone (rocking stadiums) fair enough, the media has never given them the time of day, yet they continue to sell-out stadiums around the world, as this film details. So why should they make an effort now?
Still, Dunn and McFadyen wasted an opportunity here to make this something special by breaking down the walls. You can tell by the end of the film they eventually earned Maiden’s trust, but just wasn’t able to bring them out of their rock star shells. So instead of an engaging documentary about a band with 30 years of history together, we get a “gift” to the fans.[rssbreak]
