Movie Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

When I heard Rami Malek was going to play Freddie Mercury, I was curious. Rami Malek’s Mr. Robot role is fairly monotone and bland. Freddie Mercury could not be further from that. Throughout Bohemian Rhapsody, the brooding portions of Mercury’s life come forward with Malek’s familiar, morose expression. The story is supposed to follow Mercury’s rise to stardom and diagnoses of HIV, but it feels like it plods at times. There are great sequences, if true, of the band creating some of their hits, like the title track, but also some of the anthems we’ve all grown to love.

I really can’t say anything outrageously bad about this movie. I liked it fine enough. The songs were fun, the cast of characters seemed lively. The intrigues and betrayal almost seemed obvious. Malek’s accent was off some of the time, and you couldn’t tell if it was his voice or Mercury’s that you were actually hearing. The band seemed to come off of the screen, having only ever really noticed Mercury, it was nice to see the rest of the people.

I genuinely felt sad for Mercury. He abandoned his family, was abandoned by his band, left with people around him that didn’t have his best interest in mind, at all, which is how he got HIV, it would seem. I cried through the last 20 minutes of the movie. Watching Malek as Mercury accept the news about his death sentence, which was exactly what it was in the 80s, and still perform at LiveAid was pretty remarkable. They blew the roof off of Wembley Stadium.

If you’re a fan of Queen, you will want to see this. If you’re a fairweather fan, you’ll probably still want to see this. It’s a fun romp, but don’t get the gourmet popcorn from AMC, it was like $10 for a small cup of popcorn. Being that this was a period piece, by default, it fails the Hina test. There were really only white men in the movie and one or two women. It was cute seeing his parents, but otherwise, there was no diversity or strong female characters.