(EMI)

Maiden’s most ambitious tour captured on film

Some Kind Of Monster has set the bar high for fly on the wall-type documentaries about metal. If there’s no seething tension, hissy fits or bursts of aggression, then it’s frankly not going to be anything more than an exercise in fanboy band worship.

Iron Maiden is a band that metalheads will either love passionately or hate bitterly. This movie consists of two hours of people from the former category gushing about Maiden and it gets repetitive quickly. Even filmmaker Sam Dunn introduces the movie by stating that Iron Maiden are his favourite band of all time. Taking viewers around the world, Flight 666 offers very little insight into the band or their crew, and rather focuses on the spectacle of their stage show. Admittedly very cool, their prop-heavy stage rig provides a mildly interesting subject matter for those who don’t consider themselves devout Maiden fans. Despite its merits, while watching Iron Maiden: Flight 666, all I could think about was Dangerous Dave Mustaine getting all teary in Some Kind Of Monster, a genius rockumentary that Flight 666 doesn’t come close to equalling.
The original soundtrack accompaniment to Flight 666 is curious, seeing as it features no original songs. Serving as a live best-of compilation, the album stretches one disc worth of material over two CDs, and with nearly the same track listing as the Somewhere Back In Time best-of album, it seems like a blatant cash grab. But that’s probably not going to stop diehard Maiden fans.
*½
TOM HERSEY