This is an excellent live concert film of a great band, with a story thrown in. The lighting, sound, performance, editing and effects are all absolutely first class. A lot of thought went into this piece of work.I know Metallica fairly well, having bought their first two albums when they were first released on vinyl in the 1980's. The band has had their ups and downs but this is definitely one of the high points in their career. Metallica likely realized when they conceived the project that live concert footage can be remote and lack intensity, as the viewer doesn't experience the concert energy of seeing the band live. Therefore they added a cinematic story element that has metaphors for the songs. Brilliant idea, even if the story is difficult to understand.The people that give this a film a low rating completely miss the point and misunderstand what this is about. I have no idea how anyone expected a movie in the standard Hollywood sense. It is a piece of work that is different, innovative and effective and I applaud Metallica for the effort. Anyone who enjoys hard rock / heavy metal on any level should see this movie.I attended one of the shows in which some of the filming was done and the live experience was outstanding.

my friends i have trekked through the IMDb login nonsense to give only my 2nd review on IMDb. only when are things really bad do i go through this ***.i am ashamed to have seen this group in concert twice. it was in 1989 and in 1990 and i thought at the time they were awesome. they played for 2 hours and i banged my head off - despite my quite short hair....its OK to keep cracking it out but years follows and then 'some kind of monster'then thisLars - you bald f***kirk - you are *** for not following JasonHatfield - you are scum for not following cliffother guy - whateveri really hate metabolic because i gave them about $300 bucks in my life - i'll download it all just to screw them but its all so *** they are safe.Awful . My first one star review.The crowd in this are the most bored you will ever see at any concert EVERha ha - the IMDb robot made me change my word to metabolic - they are that ***& - ha ha

This is not a movie, its a concert and for someone who is not all that familiar with Metallica this is not a good introduction to the band, it is actually painful to follow the movie. During the first 30 minutes I was praying that the movie would actually start following the protagonist. The concert takes up far too much space in the movie. It is honestly such a shame that the directors and writers couldn't let the band take the "backseat" for once by just featuring the music and protagonist for majority of the movie. There is nothing wrong with the music in the movie, the concert couldn't be more boring to watch. This movie was actually a huge let down seeing as I was looking forward to following the story of the young roadie Trip into his surreal adventure. Instead we just get a glimpse into his adventure because the concert takes up majority of the plot. The cinematography is beautiful especially when following Trip, which once again makes it such a shame the movie doesn't follow him.

I would have rated this 10 out of 10 if not for two things...First, when the set falls apart and a couple members of the crew get "hurt" it was OBVIOUSLY (so, so, so obvious) a "plot twist" that made me wonder if the whole concert was real or not. Other than that, I would have accepted that this was a live set played to a sell out crowd and that these guys are still rock gods. Now I picture them getting halfway through Master of Puppets and James screaming, "CUT!!!! My lip sync was off on that take."Two, what the hell was the "story" in the cut scenes supposed to be? Here's my synopsis of that... young, heavy metal Leonardo DiCaprio takes a hallucinogen before going out to gas up a truck. No plot. The only parts of the vignette I liked was the doll and when the roadie poured gas all over himself and lit up before getting beaten to a pulp. I was happy because I hoped that part of the movie would end.