“You need to know how to cut the lawn with a scythe because it’ll be good practice for when you CUT THE THROATS OF YOUR ENEMIES!”
How can you screw up a movie about Metal music? It’s so freaking AWESOME! It’s so WICKED! It’s so EASY! It’s just about as easy as lighting your hair on fire and pulling off a wicked stage slide through broken glass as you tear through the first minute of Dragon Force’s “Through the Fires and the Flame” with your teeth.
The problems are always the same: The films come off as really forced, they make fun of their audience instead of making them endearing, and most importantly, they feature crappy metal parody music instead of the real deal. Metal is inherently funny in itself so it’s only logical that we make FUN of it! Right?
First off, don't fear, Detroit Metal City has real metal music. It's rocking, fast and is meant to fill your speaker's insides with tears of amazingness! Secondly, the premise sounds exactly like a wicked three chord jam: “A young pop music fan is secretly a death metaller by night, but he hates it, because all he wants to do is fit in with the trendy crowd.” It's also rocking that Director Toshi Lee is a veteran to the world of comedy and he knows exactly when to smack the hero in the eye with a cigarette for maximum laughs. Broad slapstick may be looked down by the majority film snobs, but no one can deny that a perfectly timed kick to the groin is always a ticket to a genuine laugh. Yet, even with a firm directorial hand the cast still needs to pull their own weight and in that regard, most of the musical mayhem falls on the shoulders of star Kenichi Matsuyama (Who stole the Show as L in the live action Death Note films). It never proves to be a problem at all for the Japanese Johnny Depp like pretty-boy. He swings from playing an awkward effeminate guitar player to a white faced virgin raping hell spawn with such ease, by the end I started to think that maybe he really is secretly the lead singer in a devil fueled power trio. Every caricatured over the top mannerism has almost scientifically been engineered to make even the most jaded audience member giggle. The world of Detroit Metal City is so goofily innocent and energetic that you can’t help yourself but cheer along, even when it gets corny and the ‘Follow your Dream!’ message gets shoved in your face for what seems like an eternity. Don't worry, that's the way the Devil wants it. He wants to butter you up for the explosive climax.
Play it LOUD! Play it FAST! Play it METAL!
No comments:
Post a Comment