Concert movies in today’s cinema are notably ingenuous. The behind-the-scenes material of films such as “One Direction: This is Us” seems staged and appears like just another stop ontheir PR campaign.
“Metallica: Through the Never,” however, revives the raw concert experience, providing an honest account of the band despite the lack of live footage.
Depicting a typical concert by the pioneers of metal, the film includes all the trappings of a live Metallica show: insanely dangerous pyrotechnics, monumental stage decorations and frenetic showmanship.
However, it in no way resembles the typical documentary style of concert films, instead choosing to tell a story. Drummer Lars Ulrich and lead singer James Hetfield are just as much actors as they are musicians in this film.
What makes “Through the Never” a fresh relief from other concert movies is that it makes no attempt to disguise the fact that everything is scripted.
Occurring parallel to the concert, the film tells the story of a young Metallica roadie, Trip (Dane DeHaan), who is enigmatically given a map and container of gasoline and told to pick up an unspecified package for the band.
A fervent metalhead, Trip frantically drives to pick up the package in order to catch the end of the Metallica concert, resulting in a brutal car collision. This sets off a surreal adventure as Trip emerges from the wreck and discovers the other driver to be deliriously staring off into the distance.
Trip finds himself caught in a battle between police and anonymous hoodlums, unluckily becoming the target of a gas-masked, hammer-wielding horseman who unceremoniously hangs people from streetlights.
From there, Trip is plunged into a nightmare that can only be accurately described by the songs that accompany it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4IhWJ8r7_4 ((embed for online))
These songs span a diverse range of material from throughout their long career, including hits like “Ride the Lightning” and lesser-known tracks like “The Ecstasy of Gold.”
Complemented by the intense guitar riffs and energetic drums of many of Metallica’s songs, Trip’s story provides an interlude between each of the songs performed in concert.
The best of these combinations is “Enter Sandman,” played during the final showdown between Trip and the masked horseman. The menace of the song juxtaposed with Trip fearfully battling the ruthless and much more powerful horseman embodies the awesome and relentlessly thunderous nature of Metallica’s music.
Which is precisely the reason, despite not containing live concert footage, “Through the Never” is still genuine in its representation of the band. Metallica has transformed over their decades-long career from a simple band into an embodiment of the grandiosity and power of the metal genre.
The film expressly acknowledges this reputation and presents several humorous and self-aware nods to Metallica’s over-the-top style.
Hetfield is shown entering the stadium in a flame-fueled sports car, stagehands delicately inspect a guitar mysteriously dripping blood and bassist Robert Trujillo warms up before the show in a room walled with blaring speakers.
The appeal of “Through the Never” is enhanced by the choice to present the film in both IMAX and 3D. The IMAX sound system gloriously booms out even the softest of Metallica’s songs, making the audience members feel like they are in the mosh pit directly next to the speakers.
Similarly, most films that try to utilize 3D end up wasting the potential, seemingly doing it just for the costly movie ticket.
“Metallica: Through the Never” uses 3D that lets the viewer explore several different places in a concert stadium that most live shows could not match. At one point the viewer can be close enough to Hetfield to see the veins popping out of his neck, and at another be tossed around in the mosh pit.
Although “Metallica: Through the Never” is completely different from concert films that have recently graced theaters, it enhances the experience by pairing the eccentrically violent rhymes of Metallica with cinema’s recent technological innovations.
Following the movie, just expect to be hard of hearing for the rest of the day.