Metacritic reviews

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.

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.

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.

It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but I was smiling for the duration, and its subversions of certain archetypes (see Noah Urrea’s Clay) kept things marginally fresh. Good and bad, it met expectations.

There are some laughs (a well-placed police baton, for one). But Metal Lords feels unfinished, rough, like a solo the guitarist never mastered.

Though there aren’t many laughs on the way to that Battle of the Bands, Sollett’s unassuming cast and breezy pace ensure we won’t be too bored before we get there.

Peter Sollett’s coming-of-age comedy betrays rather than upholds the values of the very kids it wants to revere.