Not Good.

Rating: 3/10 (31 December 2018)

I love Queen. Freddie is a legend. This movie is not good. I didn't have high hopes, but I thought it might be kind of interesting. I actually can't stop thinking about how bad it was.
First, what was the point of this movie? Was it supposed to focus on Freddie? Was it supposed to be about Queen? It didn't focus on the other band members much at all, and I was left wanting to know more about them.
It jumped from one significant event to another. Queen was formed and then BAM suddenly they come out with A Night at the Opera and then WOW they're playing stadiums. What about their other great albums? What about their rise to fame?
Rami Malek did a pretty okay job at playing Freddie, but he was portrayed as kind of vapid which I'm pretty sure is not how Freddie was. I also had issues with the portrayal of his sexuality and his death. We all know that stuff, but I feel like the movie just looked over that. Fine, I'm sure the writers didnt want to focus on that, but I mean... Suddenly one day he is gay after looking at a trucker? AIDS was mentioned maybe twice in the movie, but the AIDS crisis was a pretty significant event in the 80s and, you know, Freddie had AIDS, so maybe a bit more focus on that would have been good? I would also have liked to have seen a little more about his relationship with Jim Hutton, rather than just Freddie ringing Jim's doorbell and then suddenly he is invited for tea with Freddie's family and then they spend the rest of Freddie's life together? Also, what about Freddie's relationship with his family?!
The movie focused way too much on performance and the big songs rather than on Queen itself and the effect Queen had and still has in the music world. Also why did they have to recreate the Live Aid performance? I can and have watched it online numerous times, I don't have to see actors recreate it. It would have been better of they just showed the actual footage or had the footage interspersed throughout the movie performance. I know that is where the writers wanted to end the movie, but it wasn't a good ending, sorry.
The directing was also kind of terrible. The fast back and forth during conversations is unnecessary. I love cats, but why were there so many shots of the cats? And during the Live Aid performance, why did they keep focusing on Mary and Jim and then the fake audience?WHY?!?!
I am a fan of Queen and Freddie, I know the music, I've watched the performances numerous times, and I know the history. If you're one of the people that didn't know about these things before, I feel sorry for you. This movie probably introduced you to the hit songs, but that's probably it.
In conclusion, only see this movie if you want a very PG-13 version of Queen/Freddie, if you don't know anything about Queen/Freddie and want a really bad/ shallow/ inaccurate/ incomplete look at their lives, or if you want to be disappointed. Why did it have to be like this.