Fluffy tribute that played it safe

Rating: 6/10 (25 October 2018)

I was neither here nor there heading into this one earlier tonight. Not being a massive fan of the band itself, I wasn't fussed on being treated to 2hrs 15mins of all the hits, but desperately hoping for a deep look into Freddie Mercury's world that we might not have seen before, all of his off stage antics & issues that inevitably caused the break up of Queen.
Alas it didnt really turn out that way, this isnt to say that Rami Malek didn't do a great job as the energetic front man, he does. A quite brilliant job in fact. It just seems like they merely glided over the deeper issues at hand & skipped by them as quickly as they could. Zero risks taken, when it probably could have been so much more. With a 12A rating in the UK I probably shouldn't be surprised.
I've since learned that Brian May & Roger Taylor were responsible for Sacha Baron Cohen not getting the Freddie gig as he wanted to go deeper/darker & focus solely on Mercury and less so the band itself. Going in this direction would've grabbed me 10x as much, but that's just personal preference.
As well as Malek's excellent performance, the tracks are all there sounding absolutely superb through the big screen & the visuals for old Wembley at Live Aid were stunning!
Although I do feel said performance was way over cooked in the finale, running 10mins longer than it should have. A good portion of time that couldve been utilised elsewhere.
This was a decent enough movie for Queen fans all over, but still remains the feel good tribute movie that the 3 surviving members will be delighted with. A missed opportunity IMO.