‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Review: A fun and adequate, if not killer Queen film
If I said I was a hard core Queen fan, I’d be lying to you. I grew up listening to their most popular songs, and even singing along with them as they came on the radio, but they never reached a level of obsession to me that artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, or Prince did. I always knew who Freddie Mercury was – and his sound was particularly distinctive and unforgettable – and I was aware of the circumstances under which he died. But I never bothered to explore the origins of Queen or Mercury himself, therefore, this film was to serve as my first official education on the band and its iconic lead singer. So the onus was really on director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Anthony McCarten (with story by Peter Morgan and McCarten) to make Bohemian Rhapsody a riveting, character-driven film given that I didn’t have previous information to fill in the gaps where the film faltered. So, did they deliver?
Yes and no.
At its center, Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t that different from any other musical biopic made, like, EVER. Boy meets band. Band likes boy. Boy and band make it big. Boy is lonely and discovers he’s a homosexual. Boy gets a drug and drinking problem. Band gets fed up with boy. Boy goes solo. Boy self-destructs and goes back to band. Band and boy perform awesome concert. The End. And along the way, the film sprinkles in some of the most well-known Queen hits to make you forget they’re really not doing a great job at character development. The film is a sort of musical-biopic-by-numbers that hits all of the classic beats of such films, but doesn’t do a great job of digging deep into who Mercury really was. And that’s why, in the end, the film left me feeling a bit empty.
While that does sound harsh, the film definitely has some things going for it that make it pretty enjoyable while you’re along for the ride. First of all, Rami Malek absolutely slays as Freddie Mercury, so much so that I can’t really imagine another actor playing him. Sure, I would have loved to see Sacha Baron Cohen’s take on it (who was previously attached to the film before walking away), but Malek perfectly inhabits the explosive aura and spirit of Mercury here, from his slithery smooth gait to his dynamic physicality on stage. He also manages to make us feel for Mercury in his loneliest times (like in his revelation to his wife that he’s gay), and giggle at his most outrageous. Malek’s performance is the soul of the film – as it should be – and the only missteps happen from the writing itself and its lack of attention to telling us why Mercury was who he was, not from Malek himself.
Another highlight was how the dynamic between Mercury and the rest of Queen was depicted. Gwilyn Lee plays lead guitarist, Brian May; baby-faced X-Men: Apocalypse alum Ben Hardy plays drummer Roger Taylor; and Jurassic Park‘s Joseph Mazzello is just shy of unrecognizable as bassist John Deacon. Of course, none of them can match Freddie Mercury’s cheekiness and flamboyance, but they all don’t mind calling him out, oftentimes in humorous ways that make it ever more clear that they aren’t simply a band, but a family of avant garde artists who make their music even more incendiary through their collaboration as well as their disagreements.
Another standout is Lucy Boynton as Mercury’s first love and wife, Mary, who continued to be his dearest friends even after he revealed his homosexuality. It’s an endearing performance that veers between doting, concerned, devoted, and amused, and it’s always a relief to see her cure Mercury’s loneliness. Game of Thrones‘ Aidan Gillen makes a LIttlefinger-esque turn as Queen’s band manager; Downton Abbey‘s Allen Leech plays a slightly slimy, duplicitous hanger-on; and Mike Myers makes a surprise cameo in a terrible beard and wig as a record exec reluctant to deviate from tried-and-true hit standards to make way for Queen’s more rebellious tunes. I honestly couldn’t tell if I was supposed to take this performance seriously, but it was certainly entertaining in its campiness.
Even though Malek mainly steals the show with his electric performance, the other star of the film is obviously the songs of Queen. It’s nearly impossible not to get excited when songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, and Under Pressure blast onto the screen. It’s in these moments where a toe-tapping pulse emerges to the film, especially when paired with Malek’s spot-on embodiment of Queen’s lead singer. The end of the film especially pulls out all of the stops to give the movie-viewing audience a mini concert, if you will, so the story definitely finishes on a high note.
But once again, in the end, I felt like there was a ton I didn’t know about Freddie Mercury, and this left me feeling that, while the filmmakers hit the requisite historical milestones of the band and Mercury’s life while in the band, I felt like the they should have dug a bit deeper into how this singular being came to be who he was. There’s a little time devoted to his roots in Tanzania and Mumbai – and his rejection of said roots – but that does little to explain how he became who he was. Perhaps trying to write a story about Queen from its inception was a bit too ambitious, and would have required more of a mini-series rather than a feature film to fully flesh out Mercury and all of the band members. The film hits all of the necessary notes of the Queen backstory, but in the end, it felt a bit perfunctory from a storytelling perspective. Which is strange considering Bryan Singer is usually pretty good at letting us get to know his characters’ motivations, even when he’s in X-Men territory. It’s possible that Singer leaving production in the middle of filming led to some of the disconnect, but I can’t imagine the film would have totally corrected its shortcomings if he got a few weeks back.
Having said that… I had a lot of fun watching Bohemian Rhapsody. It didn’t hurt that Rami Malek himself came out to introduce the film for the first Arclight Hollywood showing; that’s enough to get anyone’s blood pumping before the film. But I would say that if you’re a fan of Queen, and you don’t mind the filmmakers simply skimming the surface of who these artists were, then you should have a fine time at the movies and find yourself singing along to Queen’s classics. But if you’re barely a casual fan, then you might want some help finding a movie to love.
