The seventies and the eighties were an era when the world witnessed many miracles.
Governments changed, technology came into being, and humanity took a major turn towards modernity.
Amidst this colossal shift, the world witnessed a dramatic revolution in music and performing arts with musicians inspiring trends, inducing emotion and changing lives with just their voices and words.
The music scene in the 70s and 80s was the emergence of rock and pop, at a time when music fans were fresh off the Beatlemania of the 60s.
The musicians, now, brought in a brand new sense of freedom, by embracing vibrant eccentricity, fusing powerful lyrics with groundbreaking melody, strummed right to the heart, and above all, a deep personal connect with the fans during on-stage performances.
Three major musicians who shaped the era were Queen, Elton John and finally, Michael Jackson.
In Queen, the world saw a rock band with four different personalities fusing to make some of the best rock anthems and ballads in the history of music, along with one of the largest audience interaction in the 1985 Live Aid concert.
Walking alongside them, was Elton John, flamboyant, vulnerable and out to reign with a piano and jazzy glasses. He made music that touched souls, wore its heart on the sleeve, captivated the world’s most popular monarchy and defined romance for generations to come, while making an entire global audience weep as he paid tribute to the departed souls.
With the eighties, taking the world by storm, there was none other than the King of Pop, Michael Jackson who grabbed the music industry by the horns and transformed it to a hypnotic, energetic powerhouse, one moonwalk at a time.
Michael Jackson spoke to every music fan’s heart, changed lives, fought to live his own life and still managed to make every album more unique than the last.
As time passed, music changed, generations disappeared, trends shifted and technology began to take over human aspects, but one thing that lived on was music born in the 70s and 80s.
No matter how far the world drifts, Queen’s We Will Rock You can still bring a room together, stomping to its rhythm.
No matter how much faith we lose in love, Elton John’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight makes one want to let the heart run free.
And no matter how dull the days become, Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean can still make strangers succumb to camaraderie while indulging in the goosebumps that the song induces.
With this legacy in mind, Hollywood made three movies, showcasing these three artistes, and showing the world not just their songs, but the humans behind the music.
First came Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018, handing the spotlight to Queen. 2019 brought with it Rocketman, honouring Elton John and finally, 2026 saw the release of Michael, holding a flame to the legacy of the King of Pop.
Three musicians, three movies and a whole lot of heart.
Here’s a movie review of these biopics, which showcase the stars and have become a part of their undying legacy.
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Bohemian Rhapsody
We, in India, have a lot to thank Bohemian Rhapsody for, because after the movie released, so many new people discovered that Queen’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury was of Indian origin.
The movie focuses almost entirely on Freddie Mercury, beginning with his origins where he studies design and does odd jobs in London, to joining the band Smile as a lead singer, where he meets Queen’s lead guitarist, Brian May and drummer, Roger Taylor.
The movie highlights the entire journey of Queen, from a college band to one of the greatest groups in rock, their road to stardom filled with naysayers, disbelieving producers, personal struggles, conflict yet a strong sense of respect and camaraderie and the single goal to entertain.
In the film, we see one of the most iconic songs, the titular Bohemian Rhapsody come to life, amidst a time of heartbreaking change in Freddie Mercury’s life, despite the album, A Night at the Opera becoming one of the best rock albums of all time.
The movie has no filter. It shows the truth, about Freddie Mercury’s personality, his creativity and talent and even his search for identity. The film goes into the dreary depths of the toxic relationships in Freddie Mercury’s life, ones that eventually break the band temporarily. It shows that despite the circumstances, Freddie was so loved by the band and by Mary Austen, the muse behind so many of his songs and in his words, the love of his life. It shows him embrace his identity and find love as a gay man and it also shows him bravely face a diagnosis of AIDS at the peak of the AIDS crisis that cruelly afflicted so many innocent souls.
Bohemian Rhapsody makes each Queen song feel like a confession, with every lyric holding tremendous emotion, as it shows the backstory of all the hits.
The only place the film tends to drag is in some of the negative aspects shown during the band’s temporary breakup, but no matter how many times one watches the movie, it will always leave the audience with a tear in the eye, reverence in the heart and a beat in the soul.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a statement, urging people to embrace themselves, be outrageous and above all, give everything in doing what one loves.
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Rocketman
Elton John has defined so many childhoods, with his powerful performances in The Lion King, but in the movie Rocketman, the audience is first introduced to a young Elton, struggling to survive in a broken home, rife with affairs that threaten to destroy his childhood, with music as his only hope.
The world often sees Elton John as the British Royal Family’s favourite, but Rocketman shows a man with a piano and a soulful voice, fighting one battle after another.
First, there is his struggle with identity and facing harassment, which leads to a long fight with addiction.
In Rocketman, we see a side which makes Elton John so tenderly human. Amidst the world applauding hits such as Your Song, Crocodile Rock, Tiny Dancer and Rocketman itself, there was a man trying to survive and perhaps escaping reality seemed like the only way to feel sane.
The movie goes into the brutal depths of how addiction can slowly eat away at one’s soul, and how an outwardly perfect image is just a facade for the ugly struggle to hide beneath the surface.
It shows that the most romantic love songs can come from the darkest times in one’s life and now, each time Elton John plays on my playlist, I can feel him talking to me through his lyrics, making the world believe that the world is a beautiful place, even though he has seen its hideous side.
Rocketman is a biopic where the artist is still alive, so the tribute feels very powerful, and Elton John feels like one of the common folk, a man with a dream.
In parts, the movie feels like a bit of a documentary, with focus shifting from the music, but all in all, it is very well made.
My favourite part of the movie is how the movie ends, with Elton John coming out of rehabilitation and breaking into the song I’m Still Standing, as a powerful reminder that no matter how dark the circumstances get, a dream and perseverance is all it takes to come out stronger.
Michael Jackson is what dreams are made up of and Michael is an ode to that personality.
It is an ode to the reign of the King of Pop, who was first a child with a stolen childhood, a cash machine, a poster boy and everything in between, before he was perceived as human.
It is an ode to a man who still chose love and compassion, even when he struggled to fully own his identity.
Michael makes the audience smile, weep tears of tenderness, be inspired, before taking one’s breath away and leaving one wanting more.
The movie begins with Michael Jackson rising as a child star in his family band, The Jackson 5, where hits like ABC and I Want You Back make Michael a force to reckon with.
Amidst this new discovery of talent, the movie shows Michael Jackson as a child, completely suppressed by his father, who merely saw a talent, and not a person with a feeling heart. It shows Michael Jackson as a boy who believes in heroes and in fairy tales, and a boy who is simply every child, with a voice that makes so many hearts beat.
The film then moves to Michael Jackson’s breakthrough as a solo pop star, where Don’t Stop Til’ You Get Enough and the Off The Wall album cement him as one of the greatest artist of all times, before he works on Thriller, that immediately crowns him as the undying monarch of pop music.
Every song, from Beat It to Billie Jean to Human Nature is shown as a full performance, showcasing the mammoth effort to make the masterpieces amid a struggle to break free and lead his own life along with the systemic racism that threatened to stop Michael and failing in his trailblazing wake .
The movie also addresses the witch hunt that Michael Jackson faced owing to the colour of his skin. Watching Michael, all the false allegations against him feel so devastating and one feels that humanity really saw a new low when so many people tried to defame Michael Jackson, just because he was soft spoken and shy.
It holds a mirror to humanity’s thirst for controversy, and it makes one introspect how we treat celebrities who are first human, before they are stars.
The movie is an emotional rollercoaster, which engraves Michael Jackson’s stardom into every heart, before ending with an absolute powerhouse of a performance of Bad, a testament to breaking free.
What made Michael even more impactful was the the role of Michael Jackson was played by his own nephew, Jaafar Jackson, and there are so many points where one can see Michael smile through Jaafar’s eyes, as he performs in front of a world where the King of Pop still reigns strong.
Out of the three biopics, Michael definitely is the most impactful, mostly because it shows what it is like to be a performer, without plunging into controversy or any public opinion.
However, it is challenging to review these biopics as mere movies because each film is a slice of the artists’ life and it is a medium through which the artists, in spirit, interact with those that carry the music as a means to make life more beautiful.
