Netflix’s “Metal Lords” is a coming of age comedy that was released on Netflix on April 8. The movie centers around the defiant Hunter Sylvester (Adrian Greensmith) and his best friend Kevin Schlieb (Jaeden Martell) as they aim to win the Battle of the Bands competition in hopes of putting their metal band on the map. 

Throughout the movie, Hunter struggles with finding a bassist to help with their sound while Kevin has to teach himself to play metal songs on his drums, despite not really enjoying or understanding the point of metal. During this process, Kevin meets Emily (Isis Hainsworth), who plays clarinet in the school band and the cello on the side, all while dealing with managing her anger and minimizing outbursts — which are what caught Kevin’s attention in the first place. 

Though I was excited for this movie because it starred Jaeden Martell and revolved around metal music, I had my doubts. After watching Netflix’s “Moxie,” a movie meant to center around the feminist punk movement “Riot Grrrl,” and seeing how toned down the subculture was in it, I was sure that “Metal Lords” would find a way to do the same. And my concern wasn’t necessarily proven wrong. 

Metal was very present in this movie and mentioned constantly, but the way it was presented made it clear — though it shouldn’t have been a surprise since the movie was made by a huge company — that this movie is catered to those who aren’t genuine metal fans. “Metal Lords” constantly references mainstream metal bands, such as Metallica and Black Sabbath, with the most “metal” and elitist of the characters considering these to be incredibly hardcore and underground bands. However, I’ll admit I still enjoyed the soundtrack.

Even though this movie was full of references from popular metal bands and mixed confusing, different genres of metal together (such as black metal, nu metal and death metal), “Metal Lords” definitely lived up to the comedy aspect of the genre. Each character faces conflict throughout the movie, whether it be with accepting one another or aspects of their life that they can’t control, which always ended on a lighthearted note through jokes and chaotic actions. 

Despite the fact that “Metal Lords” has its flaws, which can make the movie unenjoyable if you’re looking for accuracy on metal, it provided a great soundtrack, lots of conflict and comedy, all of which made the movie something fun to watch if you need something to fill the time.