Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
In 1971, four college students got together to form a rock band. Since then, that certain band called Queen have released 26 albums and sold over 300 million records worldwide. The popularity of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon is stronger than ever 40 years on. But it was no bed of roses. No pleasure cruise. Queen had their share of kicks in the face, but they came through and this is how they did it, set against the backdrop of brilliant music and stunning live performances from every corner of the globe. In this film, for the first time, it is the band that tells their story. Featuring brand new interviews with the band and unseen archive footage (including their recently unearthed, first ever TV performance), it is a compelling story told with intelligence, wit, plenty of humor and painful honesty.
Queen: Days of Our Lives is a well-crafted music documentary that benefits enormously from its subject matter — one of rock's greatest bands — and the unprecedented access to all surviving members plus rare archive footage. The storytelling is chronological and competent, delivering genuine emotional weight especially around Freddie Mercury's illness and legacy. The interviews are candid and warm, and the concert footage is naturally spectacular given Queen's legendary live performances. However, as a documentary it follows fairly conventional talking-heads-plus-archive structure without significant cinematographic innovation. Its novelty lies more in the depth of access and honesty of the band's own testimony than in any formal distinctiveness. The ending, centered on Mercury's memory and the band's enduring legacy, lands with appropriate poignancy. A solid, above-average documentary that serves its subject admirably without reinventing the genre.