Director: Bryan Singer
Writer: Anthony McCarten (Screenplay) Anthony McCarten, Peter Morgan (Story)
Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilyn Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Mike Myers
Plot: A chronicle of the years leading up to Queen‘s legendary appearance at the Live Aid (1985) concert.
Tagline – The only thing more extraordinary than their music is his story
Runtime: 2 Hour 14 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Incredible Career, Poorly Told
Story: Bohemian Rhapsody starts as we see Freddie (Malek) working at the airport following an indie band around which has Brian May (Lee) and Roger Taylor (Hardy) in, who have just lost their lead singer, giving Freddie a chance to audition to take over and bring the band to a new level.
We follow the rise of Queen as the three joined by John Deacon (Mazzello) to rise through the ranks becoming one of biggest bands in the world, defining a generation of music makers. We mostly follow Freddie as he does deal with his own sexuality and mortality with his fame and musical genesis being tested.
Thoughts on Bohemian Rhapsody
Characters – Freddie Mercury is one of the biggest names in music history, we know his story, well how it ends anyway, we know the bands music. In this film we learn how he broke from his family traditions to become a Rockstar and bought a brand new meaning to entertaining the audience, we see his vices and how was only part of bands music history. Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon are the rest of the band and have their moments which show us just how the songs came about, they work well together questioning ideas. Mary Austin is the muse for Freddie, the first love even though she knows he is gay, she is one of the few people that never gives up on Freddie.
Performances – Rami Malek is great in the leading role as you believe he has become Freddie ready to perform to the audience, easily his best performance of his career. Diving into the rest of cast, they are all good and perform in the scenes they need to an impact.
Story – The story follows the career of Freddie Mercury, from the day he joined the band, to the Live Aid performance which changed the concert. The film shows us the important moments, the times they made the big steps in the career, how certain songs came about and the personal demons Freddie was dealing with. Now the story is told poorly because we only focus on the good in the career, there aren’t any truly bad moments shown here even though we know how difficult and isolated Freddie was feeling. The career Queen had was amazing which should be respected and told in a smarter way.
Biopic/Music – The biopic checklist is filled out nicely because we get to see the good from the career, the problem is, we don’t see enough of the weakness in the career. The music shows us just how entertaining Queen were and how legendary the songs are.
Settings – The film shows us the settings that the band went through to become the icons that we know.
Scene of the Movie – Live Aid.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We only see the good.
Final Thoughts – This is a biopic that plays everything too safe, Malek is amazing and the songs are too with the performances we all know people enjoy.
Overall: Queen fans will love, even though the film has weaknesses.
Rating
