Bohemian Rhapsody 2018
On the day before the Oscars ceremony I finally watched Bohemian Rhapsody, the only movie nominated for Best Picture that I had not seen yet. I had skipped seeing it at the theater after watching the disappointing A Star Is Born and seeing much worse reviews for this movie. Still, I was a huge fan of Queen back in the day, too young for a lot of their earlier work, but maybe getting The Game when it came out in 1980, then going back and filling in some of their great work from the 1970’s, only to be disappointed with Hot Space and later works, even though Queen remained popular in many parts of the world. As a fan, this was a fun movie to watch as this band of brainy misfits invents something completely new and rockets to fame, only for the lead singer to eventually be struck down by AIDS.
This movie is mostly about Freddie Mercury. You don’t find out that much about the rest of the band, but you see the band together and learn a little about their personalities and how they interacted. Rami Malek does a great job of being Freddie Mercury even though he doesn’t look just like him. Whether that performance, plus the music, plus the story make a great movie is another question. I don’t feel like the movie goes that deeply even though it takes substantial liberties with real events (the movie only goes up to 1985, but Freddie didn’t find out he had AIDS until a couple of years later, and the band never really broke up). Maybe in real life there isn’t a huge amount to tell: a talented band makes great music and gets famous while the lead singer parties too hard. It is a familiar story and maybe that is why the critics were not impressed. But the music, performance, and story (even if it is a little tired) are still there and pretty strong, which is maybe why audiences liked it and why it became one of the worst reviewed Oscar nominated movies in recent history. It seems like a better movie should have been possible. I don’t think it will win the Oscar, though Malek stands a chance of winning one. The movie is little bit fomulaic and also a little contrived in terms of the story (the Live Aid performance was truly great, but hopefully the crowning acheivement of the band would not have included “Radio Gaga,” even though the song was the source of the name taken by star in one of the other nominated films). It is certainly an enjoyable movie, especially for fans of the music, but hard to give it better than a B+.
Written: 23 Feb 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital