IRON MAIDEN - BURNING AMBITION FILM WRITE-UP

IRON MAIDEN - BURNING AMBITION DOCUMENTARY

As they celebrate 50 years of being an institution and being inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame at long last, Iron Maiden have become icons not just of heavy metal music but also with a mass-merchandising empire that makes Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson and perhaps even Kiss seem dwarfed by comparison. If you don't happen to know any band member's names or can even identify any songs then you surely recognize Eddie the Head as their mascot and his ubiquity across many platforms (bootlegged to High Hell as well). There have been several shortform and pseudo-documentaries in the past, and of course the dilemma of a band continuing to rage through the decades is that prior documentary attempts may seem outdated or missing key events as more time goes by. Here we have the first attempt at wide-release theatrical documentary that seemed to raise hype with red-carpet style events complete with an axe-wielding Eddie in their English Motherland. So exactly how well did this grandiose attempt at chronicling the band at their half-century mark go over?

Humble beginnings, record label executives trying to steer them into a more punk rock or even new wave direction to capitalize on that bandwagon at that time with the band sticking their middle finger right in their faces, an early lineup change that was met with both doubt and hesitation by many yet managed to catapult them into the stratosphere. Playing in Poland during the yet unforseen twilight years of The Iron Curtain to a rabid crowd, Bruce Dickinson's departure and the mixed reception to his early solo works, playing in small (and sometimes, VERY small) venues instead of national stadium's during Blaze Bayley's tumultuous brief tenure, Bruce's endearing triumph over throat cancer, extensive and exhaustive touring year after year... It's all here. Is it redundant and repetitive information that we have known all along? It sure is. So do we need to act like spoiled brats and complain because we've been superfans for generations now and some mainstream documentary release didn't glean for us anything earth-shattering or revelatory? Absolutely not. My take is that this is catering to casual or even non-fans to begin with (which leads to believe a major studio like Universal distributed it to begin with, to reach an audience of a totally different background than the built-in one), and for that it hits all the necessary marks. Could there have been at least some mention of legendary sound engineer and producer Martin Birch and original vocalist Paul Mario Day with whom nothing had been formally recorded for us with a purist and completist mentality? Indeed. We got the Satanic Panic, we got the infamous murder case with the fanboy kid, and we got detailed and in-depth dives into all three eras, from a Hollywood-style angle of all things. For all that we should be humble and show our gratitude, truly.

More than anything, the documentarians did a fantastic job with gathering, editing, and archiving footage throughout the decades, which is no small feat of its own. Seeing a wide array of personalities from Javier Bardem to Brian Slagel to Chuck D to Gene Simmons chims in on the band's impact also was a unique departure from only seeing lifelong fans of the same cookie-cutter appearance and mentality speak. Aside from some wacky animated segments interspersed throughout them film overall the final product is a well thought out and finely polished piece of cinema and a truly enjoyable theatrical experience. Seeing a list of their prior and departed members at the end of the credits as a fitting tribute also hit me emotionally as well, for it's often too easy and convenient to leave out such important nods to the fallen brethren.

UP THE IRONS!