I don’t consider myself a huge Queen or Freddie Mercury fan – I was unfortunately too young in the 80’s for that. But I do love their music! I don’t think there’s any other band that have more songs that I love than Queen, not even ABBA. And I love 80’s music in general. So when there was talks about a Freddie Mercury / Queen movie I loved the idea of it but I was always sceptical any actor would be able to do a good Freddie. And when Rami Malek, who is awesome in Mr. Robot, was cast I was even more sceptical. Then the movie came out with all kinds of great reviews. But it took me this long to actually take the time away from work and everything in life to go and see it.
And I liked it. I liked it a lot! I even liked Rami as Freddie, he obviously did a lot of research on the moves and Freddie’s style. And with the sunglasses it was actually a very good resemblance. And since I’m not that big a fan that I know all stories and band-moments it’s difficult to know how much of the movie is factually correct but since both Roger Taylor and Brian May were credited as producers (and yes I even spotted their cameos) I guess it can’t be too far off the truth. And I know they took a lot of liberties with the timeline so they could build up the Live Aid show as the movie’s crescendo and Freddie’s redemption, I’m all ok with that. I mean I love Braveheart even though it has more holes than Al Powell’s car at Christmas.
So what was my problem with it? Two words – “false” and “advertisement”.
In the press material for the movie and on the poster there is this image:
And that is indeed an iconic photograph of Freddie at Wembley. But it was taken at their concert in July 1986 – a concert I happen to think is one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen (even though I’ve only seen it on DVD), even including the concerts I’ve actually seen live this one takes the gold. But as I wrote – the movie’s crescendo and ending is the Live Aid concert in 1985, one year earlier. So this poster is for an event that happened after the movie’s ending and never appears in the film! That’s most definitely false advertisement.
But if you know me, if that is my only gripe with the movie, then it’s a pretty damn good movie 🙂
stoff
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