Directed By Bryan Singer

Starring – Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Joseph Mazzello

The Plot – A foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury. Freddie defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound. They reach unparalleled success, but in an unexpected turn Freddie (Malek), surrounded by darker influences, shuns Queen in pursuit of his solo career. Having suffered greatly without the collaboration of Queen, Freddie manages to reunite with his bandmates just in time for Live Aid. While bravely facing a recent AIDS diagnosis, Freddie leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music. Queen cements a legacy that continues to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music lovers to this day.

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, suggestive material, drug content and adult language

POSITIVES

– A fine collection of Queen’s greatest hits for the soundtrack. Going into this movie, you knew there was going to be some great music, and the assorted catalog of Queen favorites throughout their storied careers, certainly don’t disappoint. Everything from “We Are the Champions”, “Under Pressure”, “We Will Rock You”, and of course the title track for the film are all digitally remastered and sound great inside a theater with top notch sound quality, giving off the rush of the concert vibe that can only be attained at the highest decibel.

– Malek’s immersion into the character that gives us perhaps his performance of a lifetime. While he still isn’t my top pick for who should’ve played Mercury, Rami more than delivers as the iconic frontman, blending Freddie’s physical stage presence with a gentle side of intimacy in his daily life, giving forth a general outline for a man who was taken far too fast from us. The accent is also right on-point, and never bends or breaks through 130 minutes of progression throughout the film. Malek won me over about halfway through the film, when what felt like an impression up to that point matured into a transformation that made it easier to believe, the longer the film went on.

– Live-Aid sequence. The final ten minutes of the film were for me the highlight of the movie, and compared to how it plays against the rest of the film, it’s easy to see why. The grand scale of this immense concert with all of the biggest names in music is given the royal treatment, giving us a wide range of camera angles, frequent shots of the C.G crowd below, and a near shot-for-shot recreation of the band’s movements on stage. Had the rest of the film remained as faithful as this one sequence, you’d have a front-runner for Best Picture at next year’s Oscars, but instead it stands out as gold in a field of cubic zirconia’s.

– Channels the loneliness of Mercury’s jaded disposition. While much of the screenplay is riddled with problems for me, the isolation of Freddie’s life decisions as a bi-sexual man and swimming in riches, left him empty, and gave us the audience a very somber and empathetic investment into the man and character who just needed somebody to love (See what I did there?). It’s the strength of this dramatic muscle in the movie that really adds a great deal of compassion for Freddy, and gives food for thought for a world that treated the gay community as criminals, and how far we as a nation still have to go in respecting their important life decisions.

– Newton Thomas Siegel’s impeccable scope of cinematography. Considering this is a story that takes us through the increase of popularity for Queen, it’s an important task to visually relate that rise to fame in the subtle touches like concert footage, and Siegel’s vision here masters that request, giving us the kind of moments of reflection when played against the backdrop of an audience that keeps growing deeper. Is it presented in a music video style fashion? Yes, but that element of cheese works for this particular story, especially during the backdrop of the 70’s and 80’s, when rock concerts were a spectacle.

– Dexter Fletcher, who is uncredited as director, took over the head responsibilities from Bryan Singer about midway through, and does the best job possible in emulating what the screenplay asked of him. The most important aspect is that it’s difficult to assume where Singer left off and Fletcher began, keeping the consistency of the project firmly at hand, without any obvious moments of counterfeit that stood out like a sore thumb. I am hoping that his work in this film will earn Dexter more casting in a directing capacity for future reference, as the man’s professional capacity more than ring true to the integrity of the film, and will give a majority of fans who just look for a good time and nothing more, the movie they want.

NEGATIVES

– PG-13 over R-rating? This is the choice that worried me before the film, and ended up being the thing that stood out as one of the biggest negatives. For me, the racy material of Mercury’s life is told at face value or not at all, with the delves into drugs being left entirely on the cutting room floor. As for his sex life, it’s referred to endlessly, but the screenplay almost feels too sensitive in how it depicts its passion, coming off without affection, when it really needs it the most. I feel like honesty goes a long way in a biopic, and if you can’t show everything about Mercury for better or worse, then why even take the project on?

– Speaking of honesty, this film is anything but with the events it depicts. I find it shocking that so many supposed Queen fans are fine with how manipulative this screenplay is, choosing to cherry-pick left and right where it could matter most to the impact of the film. For example, the skipping of two Queen albums that are never mentioned, the introduction to “Under Pressure” being in 1985, yet in real life was actually 1982, and the shameless decision to lie about Freddie’s AIDS discovery supposedly before Live Aid, when in reality he didn’t find out until nearly a year after the concert. This is what we call manipulation in the business, and it does so in a way that isn’t remotely redeemable in the eyes of a story that writes itself without the distortion of events. Do your homework.

– What we learn. I feel this film will payoff mostly to a new generation of Queen fans, who barely know anything about the film. For those of us enriched in the band’s history, there isn’t a single instance where anything in the film should surprise you in the least. This is a by-the-numbers Wikipedia entry if I have ever seen one, and I say that because the script refuses to dig deeper in offering us something to justify the provocative nature of the film. The other band members are glossed over like carpet, giving us no instances of this “Family” that the film so badly wants to tell us they are. Yes, I know this is mostly Freddie, but how can you properly tell his story without echoing the thoughts and interactions with those who were closest to him during the final fifteen years of his life?

– Biopic cliches. Beyond the sequence of events feeling hollow and standing on their own, without any cohesive weight as one, this film runs into the same problems that recent musical biopics do, in that they are very formulaic and full of individually telegraphed chapters. There’s nothing smart or deep about the way these songs are introduced, and you can see their introductions coming from miles away. There’s also those glossing moments over the things that matter: Where did Freddie’s passion for music start? Why is there such little focus on the love between Freddie and Mary? What’s the deal with the cats? Who cares though, because music should be everything in a music biopic. These aren’t humans, they’re musicians, and people will love it.

My grade: 6/10 or C