Sep 20 2012 – For one night only Cineplex through its Front Row Center Events and Eagle Rock Entertainment teamed up to present Queen’s Hungarian Rhapsody. The movie essentially is a concert remastered in HD and presented in 5.1 surround. Eagle Rock will released this on Blu-Ray and DVD on November 6th 2012 which should make a perfect stocking stuffer for any classic rock music fan.
Set in Budapest, Hungary on July 27 1986, Queen would go on to play only 5 more shows after this gig the reason being Freddie Mercury the band’s lead singer would be diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and pass away in 1991. This 1986 tour was called the Magic Tour and was in support of the band’s A Kind of Magic record which incidentally was not one of Queen’s most commercially successful releases. Nonetheless Queen was much more of spectacular live act at this point in their career and sold out 100% of their tickets (almost 1 million of them) on this European tour.
In 2005 the BBC held a poll in which a group of artists, journalists and music execs voted on the best gig of all time – #3 was a Sex Pistols gig in 1976, #2 was Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, and drum roll please…. the #1 gig of all time was Queen at Live Aid 1985. Regardless of whether one agrees with the “experts” the point is that Queen was on fire in the middle of the 80’s. [Ed Note. I remember watching Live Aid and thought that U2 and Led Zeppelin stood out much more.] The Queen show in Budapest was the first Western rock show to be held in a stadium behind the Iron Curtain and the Hungarian fans came out in droves. The sold out show of 80,000 brought in gross revenue of $358,492 (meaning that the average ticket price was $4.50). The last bit of background on this concert we will provide is the setlist as seen below:
The movie begins with a seperate 25 minute documentary of the band beginning at their Live Aid gig and brings the viewer up to speed events leading up to the Hungary show. A large part is spent on how the band got involved on the soundrack for the movie Highlander, as well as how they wanted to make music videos. Really cool insight on the band and the glimpses of their personalities sets the tone nicely for the concert portion of the film.
As is typical of concert films we see the seats filling and some overhead shots to put the magnitude of this concert in perspective. This is Queen at a time before we were over saturated with Bohemian Rhapsody (thanks Wayne Campbell) and we get to hear all their hits. The combination of the massive rock anthems, the 80,000 insanely passionate fans, the big screen of a movie theater, and the 5.1 digital surround is pure musical bliss. Although the spotlight is usually on Mercury and his over the top flamboyant stage presence the film reminds viewers that Queen also has one of the worlds best rock guitarists in Brian May (did you know he has a PhD in astrophysics (!!!)) and he shines when the camera is on his guitar. It’s unfortunate that May did not get much more on camera time, but musical abilities aside he is not very camera friendly (the tall lanky version of Jimmy Page is how I think of him). The only complaint I have about this film is that although you would think having alot of cameras would be a good thing, the director of this movie changed camera angles far too frequently. I prefer the camera not to be switching every 3-5 seconds which it seemed like it did at many points in the film.
Almost all the requisite Queen hits are there – We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Bohemian Rhapsody, I Want To Break Free, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and more. One thing I don’t get is that although the band played Another One Bites The Dust that nigth it was not included in the film! I wonder why?
Queen even does a good old rock jam blending in songs like Hello Mary Lou and Tutti Frutti. Interspersed throughout the music is candid interviews or behind the scenes looks of the various bands. These interludes are what prevents this film from being a pure concert film but they do bring the members of the band closer to the audience. The next time you will get to see Freddie Mercury on stage you might be actually seeing Borat as Sasa Baron Cohen is set to star as the king of Queen in an upcoming biopic film set to be released in 2014. I for one prefer to see the real thing on the big screen.
There were a couple of moments that made the attendees at the full Scotiabank Theater screening laugh, but the part when John Deacon come out for the encore wearing his bright yellow short shorts and his white socks – scary 80’s fashions to say the least.
Verdict: 4.5 out of 5. This time capsule serves not only as a reminder that good music transcends geo-political boundaries but also that the raw magic of a Queen live show is unrivaled. This is our favorite rock movie of the year, and with Led Zeppelin’s Celebration Day around the corner we couldn’t be happier! Too bad that Another One Bites the Dust was left out. God Save The QUEEN.
