A young teen wants to discover himself through music? Yeah, I just watched Better Nate Than Ever… and Metal Lords. Pretty wide gulf between the musical stylings though… but not so wide in terms of following your dreams storylines. Though Metal Lords has a few more F bombs and naked butts than your average Disney film… so good thing its on Netflix!

Metal Lords is about two teenage boys who want to THRASH! One is a lanky misanthropic metalhead who pushes everyone away and the other is shy, small, and doesn’t really know metal but knows he has a friend who does. They want to form a band but need a bassist so they can do the (sigh) Battle of the Bands. Maybe the shy, slightly unhinged girl on cello will fit the bill?

I’m not sure who this movie will appeal to other than people who want a decent coming-of-age, follow-your-dreams type teen comedy. But if you don’t like metal, that might turn you off. And if you are a metalhead, you’ll probably be righteously indignant over the sanitized depiction in this flick.

Don’t get me wrong, they seem to understand what metal is and play some classic tunes (War Pigs, mainly), and even have some cameos from four rock gods, two of whom I even recognized. But the movie is also a little on the clean and sober side… while also trying to be rebellious with a lot of cussing (and implied s.e.x.). I’m not kidding when I say this reminds me of an edgy Disney movie…

I am randomly amused the movie is called Metal Lords and they play portions of the song Metal Gods by Judas Priest. Which reminds me of the Mark Wahlberg movie Rock Star… which was originally called Metal God. Presumably these METAL! movies don’t want to offend religion… which isn’t very METAL of them at all…

The movie, overall, is alright. Sometimes it excels a bit more than other times and its certainly good natured and occasionally cute. I’m not a huge metal fan, but I do like some of it so that drew me in and the good performances helped. It doesn’t reach any heights of excellence, but it works well enough.

Score: 78