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by BRIAN GIFFIN
BURNING ambition is definitely an accurate description of how Steve Harris elevated his uncool East End metal band with a goofy mascot to the status of one of the most successful recording and touring artists of all time.
Iron Maiden’s trajectory from London pubs to superstardom is a story of dogged persistence and clarity of vision, and a tale that has already been told and re-told many times over their 50-year career.
Ambitious, then, is an adequate description for a project aiming to tell that same story again, especially if it aims to bring in anything new.
Malcolm Venville doesn’t really attempt to bring anything revelatory to Iron Maiden’s story in Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition. Instead, he takes the time-worn band doco approach that incorporates vox pops with fans, vignettes from band members and archival footage, along with some clunky CGI animations that look like leftover cut scenes from the ill-advised Ed Hunter computer game.
Serial music doco interviewees Lars Ulrich and Gene Simmons pop up, of course, appearing with others both known and obscure, including Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer, Hirax singer Katon De Pena and a bunch of surgeons, journalists and others. Most of these fan stories seem like the same thing on repeat, although the Lebanese fan does offer a valid reason as to why anyone would think Fear of the Dark is their favourite album.
In terms of any further insight into the band, Burning Ambition doesn’t cover any new ground. Lifelong fans will learn nothing they haven’t already discerned from decades of interviews, previous documentaries, Bruce Dickinson’s autobiography and Mick Wall’s book. Iron Maiden is, as noted, one of the biggest and most well known bands of all. Nevertheless, this is a well-put together film that covers their rise to success, the crushing lows of the 90s interregnum period and astonishing return to greatness.
The curious, the casual and the newer fans – like the kid with his mum at the back of our cinema – would get a lot from it, even if the filmmakers seem to have revised the band’s story a little. There’s nothing about the band’s very origins, the narrative makes it seem like Eddie was manager Rod Smallwood’s idea and the murkiness of Adrian Smith’s exit is glossed over (his return as a condition of Dickinson’s re-entry to the group isn’t mentioned) but considering the exec producer is Smallwood himself, some of that isn’t surprising.
All that aside, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition is still an entertaining and often very funny 106 minutes. Fans will enjoy hearing the lads telling their stories and seeing old footage, and non-fans and newbies will get an inkling of why Iron Maiden are so important to so many. It’s worthwhile, if not essential.
