Critic Reviews

The story belongs to its young cast, and Lords' ramshackle comedy sweetly captures the rank anxiety, random humiliations, and undiluted hope of being young.

While the movie can play like one big valentine to an adolescent’s adoration of metal music culture, it also nails the most important aspect of metal music in a teen’s life: how it can provide a sense of power to misfits who often feel like they have none.

The film may be cinematic comfort food, but its creators do earn our trust and nail all the essential beats they need to along the way.

It’s a sweetly funny, damning, and poignant depiction of this very specific time in life–at once angsty and lovely–when anything is possible. And it has a killer soundtrack to boot.

Conventional but genuine, Metal Lords comprehends the riot of adolescent emotions and the many ways teenagers manage them.

A romance, bromance and good-natured send-up of teenage obsession.

Metal Lords, though it hits some nice high notes, never quite grabs you like the best coming-of-age movies thanks to Peter Sollett’s flat, uninspired direction.

While the film’s premise is appealing enough in its coming-of-age charm, the central characters themselves are intensely grating.

It’s “post death/doom metal” served with a side of cheese, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

In a film that sings the praises of heavy metal music and reveres those who create it, Metal Lords stumbles in its ability to truly rock.