Metal Lords, Netflix’s new high-school-music-coming-of-age-maybe-drama-maybe-comedy (???) is many, many things. It feels accurate (at least to my experiences), it is very familiar, it is a little tropey, it’s central conflict is dragged out for what seems like no real reason other than to make up the pages of a script, but most egregiously, Metal Lords is lazy.
There is something about a story about misunderstood high school teens, their cliques, and fandoms that we all love, and when done, even remotely well, can be enjoyable enough, even entertaining. Think Pitch Perfect or Drumline, Bring It On or Glee. (I could go on, but you get my drift.) The real problem with Metal Lords is that, like Season 7 of Game of Thrones (I will get to why that is my point of reference), the storytelling is easy, and convenient, and uninspired.
Here’s What You Need to Know About Metal Lords
Metal Lords tells the story of Kevin (Jaeden Martell) and Hunter (Adrian Greensmith). The former is a nerdy high schooler who plays drums in the marching band – mostly as an excuse to get out of PE class – while the latter is an absolute metal head. As you would expect, they are on the lower rungs of the high school social totem pole, a fact made worse by Hunter’s constant need to remind everyone that he and his best friend Kevin are “metal guys” and are in a band called Skullf*ckers. Kevin tells us (Kevin narrates the beginning of this movie but seems to have just given up two thirds of the way through) that he can’t really play the drums, and it’s because he’s in the marching band that Hunter has coopted him for the band. It’s also not so much a “band” as it is just two people. Hunter on lead and vocals, and Kevin, sort of, kind of playing drums.
Okay, so we now have met our two protagonists.
Skipping right through this, you will encounter a battle of the bands, a rich absent father who can’t connect with his son because they are both terrible people, a high school jock that is a bully for the first 15 minutes of the movie, disappears (he was suspended), and then comes back and does nothing for the story, a stint at a mental rehab (???), an escape from that mental rehab (???), reforged friendships, and the reformation of Skullf*ckers. There are cameo appearances by some absolute legends of metal music (Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello is a producer). There is also a five minute montage where we see Kevin play the drums to some classic metal tracks and suddenly becomes a great drummer in what feels like three days.
Oh, and Kevin’s love interest Emily (Isis Hainsworth) – who is Scottish, but whatever – apparently has mood problems that she takes pills for, but stops because she is now in love, and that’s just fine by D.B. Weiss.
Should D.B. Weiss Have Known Better?
And there it is. The reason for the Game of Thrones jab a few paragraphs ago. Metal Lords is written and produced by D.B. Weiss, one half of the producing duo of Benioff and Weiss, responsible for the rise, and subsequent fall, of Game of Thrones.
Metal Lords is filled with plot points that feel like they were designed just to get to the next point in the story. Or you know, just because. Emily’s disorder (mental, emotional, chemical, who knows?) is treated like barely a talking point. At one point she screams and throws her clarinet at the marching band leader, at another, she seems sad and down and can’t face up to something, and then, after barely getting to know Kevin, she suggests that they have sex in the car park of a Jewish synagogue after finding out that they are both virgins. CHARACTER!
But probably the worst “plot point” of the whole thing is when Hunter’s father who, upon bailing his son out of jail, sends him to a mental institution for not listening to him? For rocking too hard? Being a metal head? I guess.
Plot Things!
While at this mental institution, Hunter finds himself face to face with his metal idol, Troy Nix (Joe Manganiello), a former alum of the high school, who started a metal band, won the battle of the bands, and went on to live out all of his metal dreams. Except he didn’t. Troy Nix fought with his band mates, got into drinks and drugs and, after cleaning himself up, became a doctor and the head of this mental institution. Troy then diagnoses Hunter as being healthy and discharges him. All this happens in the space of one five minute conversation.
Metal Lords could have been so much more. It could have been a metal version of any of those high school teen movies I mentioned earlier. It could have been an updated version of Detroit Rock City. What we got, unfortunately, was this.
And you know what the worst part of it all is?
There is an amazing six episode series from the U.K. called We Are Lady Parts that dealt with a lot more, and did it a lot better. Skip Metal Lords. Look for We Are Lady Parts instead. (Seriously. With original songs like “Bashir With the Good Beard” and “Voldemort Under My Headscarf,” this series is just the best.)
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