Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Title: Bohemian Rhapsody

Year: 2018

Genre: Biography | Drama | Music

Runtime: 134 min

Director: Bryan Singer

Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee

8,2/10                  

The story of the legendary rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury, leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).

A NICE TRIBUTE TO A LEGEND BUT NOT COMPLETELY TRUE

First of all I’m a big fan of the band Queen and their iconic singer Freddie Mercury, like mostly of my generation (late 90’s kids) I missed the band in its prime, hell Freddie was already dead for a whole 5 years when I was born. I got to know the band through the pop culture they conquered, media always played and referenced their songs. I liked them and when I got to know the original band behind songs I got hooked, on the explosive and improvise sound and voice. Freddie’s flamboyant and conquering persona on the live stage made it so much better. A hard performance to beat… or imitate.

But, this movie made a good job, every actor and actress gave everything they got into this. Rami Malek went hard into his roll as Freddie, made a believable depiction of Mercury transforming from the corky socially awkward dreamer to the dominating sexually free performer. The laugh, movement and voice dead on. As I said, the rest of the ensemble also did a great job. So believable, I most note that I was so surprised to see Gwilym Lee was so alike Brian May as young, so freaking cool. The cast’s performance was so believable it extremely turned up the experience.

When it comes to the script, here is the movie’s highs and lows. It have the “typical” structure of a corky protagonist going on a mission and devolve along the way, here it’s Freddie. The movie do a great job with making Freddie’s story enjoyable, and I really loved following it. The problem with the script comes when you start googling around after the film and find out that much of the movie’s event was false or construed. Stuff from how the band met to how they temporally split. Yeah most of the biopics today have flipped some facts in it’s story for dramatic effect, but this film is doing it a little too much and I think that in this instance it’s more hurtful because Freddie’s iconic pop culture status today. Every 12-year-old and their dad and granddad have heard a Queen song. If you only want a good movie, this won’t ruin your experience but if you are a hardcore Freddie-fan it probably will. It’s up to you.

The production overall was descent, the camera, scenography and so forth. It’s noticeable in some scenes when it comes to tone and focus, that this film have to two directors with different visualizing for the story. It’s the stiff morphing between the comedic and dramatic scenes. If you’re a film nerd you will notice when you see the film. I think this behind-the-scenes-meltdown also affected the fact problem I talked about earlier.  Last of all I must say the musical parts was amazing, teasing us the viewers through out the story with small performances building up to the big long Live Aid concert (1985). Great ending for a tribute with the heart in the right way, but not the whole facts.