I went and saw Bohemian Rhapsody despite a fair number of negative reviews and, well, I thought it was pretty great. I've never been a huge fan of Queen myself, but I think the film got skewered by, on the one hand, fanbois and on the other Pitchfork-reading music snobs. (Confession -- I am a bit of a Pitchfork-reading music snob!)
But Rami Malek shines as Mercury. And I feel older than usual because I've never seen him in anything before, but he was fantastic. The opening shot of him and the prosthetic overbite is just about as risky as a mainstream Hollywood film will get these days, but I got used to it quickly enough.
Is a bio-pic about the most prototypically bombastic and over-the-top front-man of all time allowed to be, in its own way, a bit bombastic and over-the-top, maybe even borderline cheesy? I think so. I really do, form fitting function and all that stuff.
I also think this movie "gets" creating music in ways most other films don't. (Like, say, the incredibly overrated Whiplash, where songs are slavishly formed by musical Ubermenschen alone on their own mental islands, even when in the same room, and any hint of fun or abandon is bad and wrong). Sure, there are some cliches of "frustration in the studio" but those are balanced out by shots where Freddie pushes the band in directions they wouldn't have gone otherwise. It's awkward and painful and stochastic, creating great art, and it usually comes from more than one person and their sacrosanct "genius."
Good art tends to be messy, is what I'm trying to say, and this is a messy film that I think generally works with a few missteps (the press conference scene).
I did wonder why Bowie didn't make an appearance. "Under Pressure" gets woefully short shrift compared to "Bohemian Rhapsody" or even "Another One Bites The Dust." You've got Rami in buck-teeth prosthetics, why not role the dice on a coked-out '82 Bowie?
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