Review of Queen: Under Review 1980 - 1991

Introduction

Everybody knows Queen and at least half a dozen singles, the group seemed to be the quintessential English rock band with an ear for a good rock tune and a quite English sense of humour. The 70`s were about their rise in the world of glam rock and mainstream acceptability and monster hit Bohemian Rhapsody.

Queen marched into the 1980`s off the back of hit album The Game and promptly surprised everyone by picking up synthesisers and providing the wonderful soundtrack to gash film Flash Gordon. It`s a mark of both the popularity of this album and the Queen name, that you won`t this in bargain bins in the likes of HMV, I know as I looked at this only yesterday. Still, it will mean Brian Blessed is never out of voice over work ("Gordon`s alive?!?!?!?") and provided me with one of my favourite film quotes ever ("Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!").

Anyway, from Chrome Dreams comes a documentary on the 80`s and the early 90`s up to Freddie`s tragic death. Covering every album release plus the much maligned Sun City appearance and it`s subsequent eclipse by the majestic performance of Queen at Live Aid, contributors including Paul Gambaccini, Phil Sutcliffe and a handful of other respected interviewees provide the critical analysis of the second half of Queens career to date.

Video

Main footage for the documentary in fine albeit in 4:3, but some of the archive footage is in a really bad way. All the sources are clearly marked, presumably as this is an unofficial documentary and they didn`t want to pee off Queen`s lawyers, but still…

Audio

Dolby 2.0 Stereo soundtrack that is fine for this, but no subtitles. C`mon guys, get your act together, subtitles are a must on any documentary.

Features

Collecting - A 5 minute thing on Queen memorabilia and how collecting brings some fans closer to their idols. Not that great.

Interactive quiz - 25 questions on Queen, of which I only got a `mediocre` 13 right. Ah well…

Bios - text biographies on the interviewees for the documentary.

Conclusion

I`m not a big Queen fan, more of a Greatest Hits/Compilation fan, but my favourite Queen period was undoubtedly the 80`s when I was growing up through my teens. To prove my credentials as a non-fan, I`ll admit here that the only album I have after the Greatest Hits trilogy is Flash, and this is only because it`s wonderfully bonkers and full of synths.

I`ve seen a few of these `Independent Critical Analysis` DVDs in the racks at the likes of HMV before but never watched one. The Independent marking indicates that no-one from the band is involved at all, and that is both good and bad. Good in that there is the chance that you`ll get an unbiased account of what the documentary subject is about. It can be bad though, as it doesn`t provide the personal counterbalance that only the people involved can provide.

That said, I found this an interesting viewing, the contributors seem to be Queen fans on the whole but aren`t sycophantic fans who can`t say anything wrong. Hot Space is virtually universally decried as befits that album and Sun City is glossed over quite quickly, although without anyone really defending the band over this. I would have liked more emphasis put on the Live Aid appearance as this was really a turning point for the band but you can`t have everything I suppose.

To be honest I think this is aimed more at the casual fan than your more dedicated ones, and it`s at a nice enough price that is in line with most Queen albums. My only gripe is that I thought 78 minutes to not be long enough…