The Acting and Actors were excellent especially Gwilym Lee and Rami Malek. Mike Myers is brilliant too. Book ending the movie with Live Aid, good idea, worked well. You can't cover the entire story in 2 hours. However, what let this movie down was the crap storyline and terrible inaccuracies. The inaccuracies are inexcusable when the likes of Peter Freestone have gone on record to say how painstakingly accurate the makers had gone into giving the film a much detail as possible. The timelines really fucked the film up, plus some of the obvious inaccuracies. Here are the main ones:
• JD comes in as bass player straight away, no mention of any others or how JD completed the band.
• Fat Bottomed Girls played on First US tour…. Why???
• PP was not taken on board as part of management pre Bo Rhap.
• The Rio scene said 1980, but it was clearly from the Rock in Rio from 1985. Why???
• WWRY look. We saw this in the trailers, WWRY composed in 1980!!! Fred in the clone look, not the 1977 NOTW long hair look. WTF, this is such lazy and sloppy oversight. It does detract from the film. Yes, artistic licence but this is just shit and needless. Why put these clear mistakes onto celluloid for ever when they could so easily been avoided and given a more accurate film and kept it entertaining too!
• BM playing a Gibson Les Paul on AOBTD, no he didn’t!
• RT in film says band had not played ‘in years’ before Live Aid. Bollocks, The Works tour went well into 1985 and Live Aid was in July 1985!
• Fred’s dad reads The Sun article by PP in 1980 about Fred’s gay lovers, that didn’t appear until 1987.
• Fred always introduced JH to his parents as his Gardner from most books and interviews sourced. He never actually came out to his parents although they probably knew.
• Fred’s HIV diagnosis was not revealed until 1987. While he may have suspected, he didn’t reveal to the rest of the band until 1989/90, not just before Live Aid, again so stupid and ruins the movie, it adds nothing. It could have been implied but this was crass.
• FM first met JH in a bar/club not as JH working as some kind of caterer cleaning up after a party!
• Equal credits for songs didn’t happen until the Miracle in 1988.
• Getting Freddie back on board, bit of a daft and unnecessary scene others could have been inserted.
• RT wore the same Adidas boots as FM and BM at Live Aid in the movie he doesn’t. Only JD never wore the high top Adidas Hercules wrestling boots which the others did on the Works and Magic tours as well as Live Aid. They are a real collectors item!
Here are some things which would have made it better:
• No mention of RT/FM’s stall on Kensington Market, could have been a source for great scenes.
• Peter Freestone, Joe Fanelli, Terry Giddings, Mack, Barbara Valentin. None show up in the movie! All were prominent yet Mike Myers’ character was totally fictional. Could he not have played a real character like Kenny Everett?
• Too much focus on PP. Yes, he was a cunt but too much time wasted with him.
• Nothing on the Bowie/Under Pressure sessions would have made a great scene. Nothing about Montreux recordings.
• Nothing about Hyde Park Gig, getting threatened to be kicked off because they were playing late.
• Nothing on the early 1980’s South American Tours, great tales from those.
• Q2, ADATR, Jazz, The Works totally overlooked.
• Nothing post Live Aid, fair enough can’t do everything but that’s a big slice missed out.
Overall, 4/10. The Channel 5 Docu drama was more accurate but lacked the music of the movie. Finally, the OST, when are they going to release a studio mix which like the live version contains extra guitar in the intro and riffs along with the drum beat. I’d love to hear a remix or re-recording of that version.
YAFFF · Member since
It's currently at 48 for Metacritic, which only includes reviews from the more important critics (unlike Rotten Tomatoes). I'm having a hard time not feeling bitter towards Maylor. They knew what they were dong. Joe Public will think this movie is truthful. They'll get their hit and make even more money but it would piss Freddie off I believe. Like I said. Not paying to see this film. I'll see it for free. It's obviously a piece of sitcom-level fluff.
dysan · Member since
Has anyone commented on the timeline liberties being for the sake of the plot? IE the reason for changing FBG to '74 and WWRY to '80? For example, does it hint at Queen being seen as a raunchy band on the first US tour that were positively hetro (so FBG might make sense) to set up later scenes where the US got confused by all the gayness creeping in? Or WWRY (a big US hit) is bracketed with the US success of AOBTD and CLTCL in 1980 so it's recording is transposed into that era. That makes sense to me - although obviously still a frightful rewriting!
Or are they just stand alone scenes? IE total cock ups?
Vocal harmony · Member since
dysan I think your theory is pretty close to what they were aiming for. I also think that early on they may have had an ideal which songs best represent a real time line of hits which they may have felt needed to be included.
So it does appear, at face value, to be odd seeing a 74/75 rendition of FBG but it does serve the greate structure and time constraints well. Remember the film is about Freddie, not the complete story of Queen. Someone earlier in this thread said the film should have included more about Brian's personnel life and more about the individual band members, someone else said it skips the search for a bassist but that's missing the point that it isn't a Queen bio pic. The story is told from the angle of the band, it could have easily been told using Jim Huttons book and in a more personnel way and gone back to tell an already well covered history of where Freddie came from and what he did etc with little ( in depth) mention of the band, there are many other directions it could have taken, but didn't.
People I know who are Queen fans and just casual fans have all enjoyed it. I think some on here are to willing to be critical rather than sitting back from the subject and just enjoying the film like most of its audience will.
dysan · Member since
I would've added that it seemed a bit sinister using two BM songs to illustrate these points I made (especially WWRY at the expense of a deacon song and mercury song) but I think I'd accept that a Queen song is a Queen song regardless of writer. Much like when they discussed selecting songs for the live set - they knew what worked with no egos of the writers. I can imagine the WWRY sequence was a 'must include' scene so was worked to fit then for whatever reason. FBG raises more questions though as it seems quite a random mismatch.
MisterCosmicc · Member since
LOL. Millions and millions will see this film... they'll wander onto Queenzone with misinformation.
dysan · Member since
HA I already had that with a friend of mine. I kept correcting him. He just looked blankly like 'but it's IN A FILM'
Apocalipsis_Darko · Member since
Mack appears...the actor who did Mack wrote about the movie, saying they deleted all the scenes Mack talk. So we only see Mack as other person...no more.
Bowie or Baker didn't give the consent to appear in the film.
rockchic65 · Member since
I saw it last night and being a long time Queen fan the timeline errors were a bit distracting but my friend who's a casual Queen fan thought it was great and had no idea anything had been altered. I can see the problem from the perspective of lots of casual fans now believing a lot of stuff that isn't strictly true but realistically it would have had to be a mini series rather than a film to cover everything in the right time frames. The most jarring bit for me was him telling them about the Aids diagnosis before Live Aid, even if they wanted to portray that for the timeline it could have been done a lot better, it just seemed so completely at odds with how Freddie would have done it, and tbh I can't in a million years imagine he'd have chosen that very moment to talk about it, that just didn't work for me. I thought some things could have been done better but overall I enjoyed it for what it was and obviously the music helped with that. As to Marc I agree with 4x vision I think the Live Aid stuff had him mixed in with parts and odd bits just Marc, there were some odd little bits that didn't just sound right but casual listeners aren't gonna notice I wouldn't think. Have to say in some parts with John & Brian I almost forgot I wasn't watching the real thing, brilliant casting there.
bucsateflon · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]4 x Vision wrote:[/b]
Hmm, I'm not convinced Live Aid is Freddie. Voice seemed a little thinner than it should be... I'm saying Martel. Difficult to judge on a single viewing though (although i don't intend to see it again lol).
[/QUOTE]
Havent seen the movie yet but...
Definitely was Marc Martel on Live Aid Boh Rhap official clip
I saw it on youtube, unfortunately I can't find that clip anymore?!?
Anyway my point is, he really has a weak voice in some parts of the vocal range. That is a reply to all those who say he should be instead of Adam Lambert. No he sucks, and he also doesnt have the Rocknroll chops needed .
Totally disagree. Marc Martel is far superior in my ears. Lambert gives me nothing.
rockchic65 · Member since
Have you heard his new album of Queen covers? Conveniently released on the 26th in the middle of all the fuss about the movie. I don't think Queen's legacy has anything to worry about.
If that's the audio from the film that is without a shadow of a doubt Martel and how anyone could think otherwise doesn't really listen to Freddie close enough. Yet another reason to skip the film for me. Martel has an amazing voice- I wish I could sing like that- but he obviously isn't Freddie and it's insulting they would use Martel for Live Aid.
