Just seen the movie and, while I can get past some of the timeline changes in terms of songs being released at different times etc. I do have more of an issue with the whole build up to Live Aid which is completely made up and untrue.
The film portrays a band who have not played together for years with Freddie, freshly diagnosed with AIDS, begging the band to take him back pretty much weeks before Live Aid so much so that Bob Geldof had to squeeze them in when the bill was already full. So this band who’d been out of action for years with Freddie struggling to get his vocals back in shape we’re about to make a big comeback and Freddie tells the band just days/weeks before that he’s dying.
Literally none of that is true, Queen had been playing shows all year, Freddie was not diagnosed with AIDS until years after Live Aid.
My Mum and Dad went to see it with me and absolutely loved the movie as do many other people who are not huge fans are of the band so I guess it is a success in terms of being an enjoyable movie for the general public. I just feel that people are being duped a little in terms of this huge historic event and will go away with a false account of what led up to that performance at Live Aid.
I think the movie did deal with Freddie’s lifestyle and his sexuality, I’m not sure what people were expecting in a PG movie. You weren’t going to see explicit gay sex scenes but it was pretty clear he was promiscuous and, whilst his assistant was kind of made out to be the bad guy, it was ultimately about Freddie being a lonely guy trying to fill a void in his life that led him to the destructive lifestyle of drugs and sex which ultimately killed him. No issue with how they dealt with that, you saw Freddie being a dick at times, he wasn’t made out to be a saint.
Ultimately I enjoyed it and found it a really emotional movie, I shed quite a few tears, Freddie’s voice can do that to me at the best of times. Not sure I can totally forgive the liberties taken in the last 30 min or so though.
Oh and Rami Malek kills it as Freddie Mercury, he’s unbelievable in the role. We’ll never know what SBC’s Freddie was like but I would be amazed if he could’ve topped this as an acting performance.