Summary
When Freddy went looking for the band after a show in London, he didn’t know he was meeting his new family. When the band met Freddy, they didn’t know they were meeting a future legend.
A Movie Fit for a Queen
I’m not the world’s biggest Queen fan but I do like them. I was barely even born by the time the events toward the end of this movie happened. In middle school, I heard Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time. It would take years for me to find out that they band who recorded it also authored the rock anthems “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions,” songs I would hear over and over at sports events throughout High School.
By the time I heard "Brighton Rock” and “Don’t Stop Me Now,” I knew i had found a band that would feature in many playlists, or at the time, mix tapes, for the rest of my life.
Over the years there have always been rumors about a Queen movie being written or green lit but they always turned up false. The question that always arose out of such discussions was “who could ever play Freddy Mercury?” His look, his voice, his stage presence seemed untouchable.
Finally, it was announced that Rami Malek (“Short Term 12”) would play him and I’ll confess, I was a bit dubious. I had seen "Mr. Robot" and a glimpses of him in other things but he was so reserved I just couldn’t imagine him playing the Rock Star of all rock stars.
I am happy to say I was totally wrong. Malek does an amazing job, not just of acting like he did on stage, but performing with the sort of power and rhythm that Freddy did and bringing that same yet subtly different energy into the non band performance based scenes.
In fact, his performance as Freddy Mercury is the only real reason to see this film. It’s entertaining, funny, sad, moving and everything else we all expect from a musician biopic. Guess what? He did drugs, was a homosexual, had issues with his dad, and resented his band. If you didn’t already know the story just from knowing about his life you could still predict most of the story beats of this film if you’ve seen “Walk the Line,” “A Star is Born,” or any other of the myriad of musician rise to fame movies out there.
That isn’t to say it’s not worth watching. It totally is. The acting is just that good. Not just by Rami Malek either. Gwilym Lee (“The Tourist”), Ben Hardy, and Joe Mazzello (“Jurassic Park”) all do a wonderful job of mimicking Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon. In fact, while the movie spends the vast majority of its time with Freddy Mercury and in awe of him, it definitely doesn’t forget the rest of the band. In fact, it does so in a more profound way than most movies about bands.
You really end up getting a sense of camaraderie and family from the band. Of course, I don’t know how much of that is accurate but it makes for a good movie and that’s what I’m judging here. This movie is as much about four guys realizing they love and need each other as it is about the rise of a Rock n’ Roll hero.
On a side note, While Rami Malek did sing for his performances in the movie, the actual recording you hear is mostly by Marc Martel, the lead singer for Christian Band “Down Here” and they sound phenomenal. I would have loved the way it sounded even before finding to that one of my favorite bands from back in the day supplied the vocals. After finding that out, I love them even more.
For the hardcore Queen fan, I imagine much of this movie will seem like old news but as Freddy is no longer with us, this is probably as close as one could get to seeing him perform and for that reason, I think it is totally worth seeing.
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