It’s already proving quite the year for Iron Maiden. Not only have the east London metalheads landed a long overdue induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and their biggest ever UK headline show in the form of a two-day mega-fest at Knebworth, they’ve also bagged a much hyped global cinema release for new documentary Burning Ambition.
Dubbed a film “for the fans”, this thrilling 106-minute romp gallops through the rock titans’ five decades together – from early pub beginnings during the 1970s punk explosion right through to current ‘Run For Your Lives’ world tour. And it’s all told through the eyes of past and present members, super-stans and famous talking heads such as Lars Ulrich from Metallica, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hollywood movie star Javier Bardem.
Director Malcolm Venville’s fascinating film expertly pulls apart Maiden’s allure – it wasn’t just their music that set hearts ablaze, but the whole rebellious image. Take the group’s shape-shifting skeletal mascot Eddie, who adorns every album cover and is ever present throughout the doc. As Chuck D interestingly points out, the amazing thing about this frightening figure is how he reflects the experience of many fans, who were “drawn to the band without even knowing the music”. Funnily, we learn Maiden only created the cartoon killer so that they didn’t have to put their own mugs on the records.
Elsewhere, early tension between bassist-songwriter Steve Harris and operatic frontman Bruce Dickinson provides one of the film’s uncharacteristically Spinal Tap moments as the pair nearly come to blows when they both try and hog the stage. It’s one of Burning Ambition’s highlights – as is the rockers’ journey to Poland to perform behind the Iron Curtain in 1984. Here, Maiden share an amusing anecdote about how the military police constantly intimidated them by turning up at every concert only to eventually surrender to the music by throwing their hats onstage.
The film’s main problems are to do with pacing. At times, Burning Ambition buckles under the weight of its own aspiration as it seeks to cram in too much detail over a relatively short runtime. But in other moments, important parts of Maiden’s history (Dickinson’s initial exit in 1993 and his cancer diagnosis in 2014) are completely glossed over. The band’s golden era in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, which saw them headline the massive Monsters Of Rock festival (then held annually at Castle Donington in Leicestershire) and unleash classic anthems like ‘Wasted Years’, ‘Can I Play With Madness’, ‘The Clairvoyant’ and ‘Fear Of The Dark’ barely gets a mention.
Instead, the focus sits squarely upon the group’s inevitable burnout during this period. The fact that their army of followers once famously helped Dickinson and co. score their only UK Number One single with ‘Bring Your Daughter… To The Slaughter’ despite Radio 1 banning it from the airwaves, also fails to get a look in.
For those uninitiated in the ways of Eddie and the gang, Burning Ambition ticks all the right boxes. But as Dickinson himself summed up perfectly in a recent interview: “Diehard Maiden fans will be asking: ‘why isn’t it 10 hours long?’” It makes you wonder whether a documentary series may well have been a better option – even if the movie makes for a moving and amusing recap of Maiden’s incredible legacy.
Details
- Director: Malcolm Venville
- Release date: May 7 (in cinemas)