'Bohemian Rhapsody' movie reviews & impressions

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/movies/bohemian-rhapsody-review.html

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Review: Another One Bites the Dust

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” the song by Queen, lasts nearly six minutes, a very long time for a pop single back in 1975. A baroque blend of gibberish, mysticism and melodrama, the track is a can of earworms, one of those musical confections that get into your head whether you like it or not and stay there forever. Some of us who were devoted radio listeners in the mid-’70s will surely sit up in our death beds and whisper “Galileo, Galileo, Figaro” with our final breaths.

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” the movie about Queen, lasts more than two hours, not a very long time by modern feature standards, even though it feels interminable. A baroque blend of gibberish, mysticism and melodrama, the film seems engineered to be as unmemorable as possible, with the exception of the prosthetic teeth worn by the lead actor, Rami Malek, who plays Freddie Mercury, Queen’s lead singer. Those choppers may give you nightmares. And some of you who venture into the theater will surely be inspired to exclaim “Mama mia, let me go!”

Bismillah, no. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Like most musical biopics, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which focuses on Mercury’s thrilling rise and partial fall, is a little of both. Beginning with Queen’s show-stealing performance at the Live Aid charity concert in 1985 — a very big deal at the time — the film flashes back to scruffier days in London, 15 years previously, when a young man named Farrokh Bulsara renamed himself Freddie Mercury and joined a band with a bunch of fellow college students.

Freddie’s sometimes difficult relationship with his conservative Indian Parsi family forms one axis of the plot. (His stern father is played by Ace Bhatti, his doting mother by Meneka Das.) His generally harmonious, occasionally contentious relationship with his bandmates (Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello and Gwilym Lee, in fine hair) provides another. If you’ve ever wondered how “Bohemian Rhapsody” managed to be released — there was an argument with an industry bigwig, cheekily played by Mike Myers — or how Queen came up with the beat for “We Will Rock You” or the bass line for “Another One Bites the Dust,” your curiosity will be half-satisfied. You will also hear a lot of music, which is nice.

Queen’s hits were always more about sound and sensation than sense, and Mercury’s lyrics were above all vehicles for his extraordinary voice. Sadly, absurdly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a plodding, literal-minded, conventional affair, in spite of Malek’s game attempt to mimic Mercury’s strutting theatricality onstage and his operatic moodiness in daily life.

The screenwriter (Anthony McCarten, who wrote “Darkest Hour” and “The Theory of Everything”) and the credited director, Bryan Singer (who was replaced by Dexter Fletcher late in the production), swaddle their subject in pageantry and spectacle, without supplying dramatic momentum or psychological insight. Mercury, as he struggles with his sexuality and his need for creative autonomy, is a collection of adjectives — imperious, vulnerable, witty, forlorn — in search of a personality.

His marriage, to Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), is idealized, though it’s also complicated by Freddie’s attraction to men. The film doesn’t seem to know what to do with homosexual desire — or with gay politics as the sexual liberation of the ’70s gave way to the AIDS crisis of the ’80s. Freddie’s love affair with Paul Prenter (Allen Leech of “Downton Abbey” fame), a member of Queen’s management team, is played for maximum scandal, a nightmare of debauchery, addiction and exploitation, with Freddie in the role of corrupted innocent.

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]bucsateflon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Supersonic_Man89 wrote:[/b]

Weird how people are arguing about Marc's voice being used for the Live Aid section... when in the final film it's Freddie. Whatever the reason was, they obviously changed their mind very later on... good decision too.[/QUOTE]

You can't be trusted...[/QUOTE]

WTF?

Why yet another baseless personal attack to a perfectly reasonable post? Do you have nothing better to do?
[/QUOTE]

Sheesh you win the "whiniest bitch of the week" award hands down. Quit being a twat.[/QUOTE]

Oh this character is really sick in the head, just look at his posts count, all he does is make stupid statements and create quarrels.
Best to ignore him, you'll be doing what doctors would advise for his mental illness.

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

LOL! You don't know who I am[/QUOTE]

"Who you are" isn't your occupation or your accomplishments.

It is your personality.

And judging by the drivel that you spew on this forum, you don't have one.

If by any slight chance you actually think you are "somebody", give your head a shake and look at what you've instead become - an internet bully with a superiority complex.

[QUOTE] [b]bucsateflon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]bucsateflon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Supersonic_Man89 wrote:[/b]

Weird how people are arguing about Marc's voice being used for the Live Aid section... when in the final film it's Freddie. Whatever the reason was, they obviously changed their mind very later on... good decision too.[/QUOTE]

You can't be trusted...[/QUOTE]

WTF?

Why yet another baseless personal attack to a perfectly reasonable post? Do you have nothing better to do?
[/QUOTE]

Sheesh you win the "whiniest bitch of the week" award hands down. Quit being a twat.[/QUOTE]

Oh this character is really sick in the head, just look at his posts count, all he does is make stupid statements and create quarrels.
Best to ignore him, you'll be doing what doctors would advise for his mental illness. [/QUOTE]

Projecting again, I see. Typical of someone with a mental illness.

If I've been on this forum for nearly 20 years, the math says I post 3 times per day on average, which is 5 minutes of my day - nowadays largely in response to vile nonsense spouted out by people like yourself. Whoopie dee.

Why are you so obsessed with me? You have pointed this out time and time again as if it has some kind of meaning in your life.

You should seek help.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

LOL! You don't know who I am[/QUOTE]

"Who you are" isn't your occupation or your accomplishments.

It is your personality.

And judging by the drivel that you spew on this forum, you don't have one.

If by any slight chance you actually think you are "somebody", give your head a shake and look at what you've instead become - an internet bully with a superiority complex.
[/QUOTE]

Well, clearly, clearly, I'm superior to you. Then again...who isn't?

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]
mental illness
[/QUOTE]

Post number 20,388 from Real Wizzer (who only gets 30 minutes a day computer time at the asylum where he resides)

This forum needs some real moderation. Way to derail the thread, dude.

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

This forum needs some real moderation. Way to derail the thread, dude.[/QUOTE]

Hmm. Instead of posting a review or giving an opinion on the flick...you post this? See the irony? Here let me do what you should have done instead:

A review:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bohemian-rhapsody-2018

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, suggestive material, drug content and language.

135 minutes
Sheila O'Malley

October 30, 2018

There's a scene in "Bohemian Rhapsody" I keep coming back to, because it's symbolic of the film's problems, not just with its presentation of Queen, but of Freddie Mercury, the legendary lead singer and the greatest frontman of all time. (I'd say "arguably" but for me there's no argument.) One night, Freddie Mercury (an extraordinary Rami Malek), missing the excitement of touring, throws a costume ball in his mansion. Dressed in an ermine cloak and a crown, he swings through the crowd, made up of men in various degrees of fabulous drag. The other members of Queen—lead guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee), drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello)—sit together, visibly uncomfortable. Freddie greets them rapturously, and one of them says stiffly, "This isn't really our scene, Freddie." Later that night, Freddie hits on a waiter named Jim (Aaron McCusker), who rebuffs him, saying, "Call me when you like yourself."

The more I think about this scene—the problems of which could fill an entire dissertation—the angrier I get. "Bohemian Rhapsody"—written by Anthony McCarten ("The Theory of Everything", "Darkest Hour") and directed by Bryan Singer (with uncredited director Dexter Fletcher, who took over after Singer was fired)—wants me to watch the costume ball scene and think, "Wow, I'm scared for Freddie. Freddie needs the stability of his (married, straight) band members to counteract the SUPER gay world he's living in." I struggled with this scene, I tried to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. But what's onscreen is what is intended. We are meant to side with the band members, we are meant to look at Freddie with the same discomfort about him acting so, well, gay. It's unforgivable.

Opening and closing with Queen's triumphant performance at Live Aid in 1985, the film shows (sort of) the transformation of shy buck-toothed Farrokh Bulsara, the closeted son of Parsis parents, into the strutting swaggering Freddie Mercury. Freddie is shown approaching a band he likes backstage at a club in London. They just lost their lead singer, and Mercury has written a song he wants to show them. Next thing you know, he makes his debut with them, and, except for one catcall of "Paki," Freddie and his flamboyant movements goes over really well. Next thing you know, they're Queen, and they're touring the world. In the film, their artistic journey is boiled down into on-the-nose statements like, "We'll mix genres and cross boundaries!" Do rock stars speak like this? The genesis of some of their biggest hits—"Bohemian Rhapsody," "Another One Bites the Dust," "We Will Rock You"—are treated in a cursory manner, with very little insight provided into an actual creative process.

Biopics tend towards the "sensational," making the mistake of thinking that the most interesting thing about James Brown, for example, is his personal life, when why we care about James Brown is his music. "I Saw the Light" was far more interested in Hank Williams' drug addiction than in what he actually did in country music that was so groundbreaking. Some films—like "Love & Mercy" and "I'm Not There"—move away from the biopic approach altogether, and attempt to grapple with the subject matter as artists. The artistic commentary in "Bohemian Rhapsody" tends towards a knowing wink-wink at the audience. "Nobody wants to listen to a six-minute opera song with words like 'Galileo' in it!," cries one record label executive (played by Mike Myers in a bit of meta-casting, calling up the "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene in "Wayne's World.")

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is bad in the way a lot of biopics are bad: it's superficial, it avoids complexity, and the narrative has a connect-the-dots quality. This kind of badness, while annoying, is relatively benign. However, the attitude towards Mercury's sexual expression is the opposite of benign. The tensions of being a gay man in the 1970s are not handled, or even addressed. He himself seems unaware of his own sexual desires. He falls in love with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), and looks shocked and disturbed when a trucker gives him a seductive side-eye at a restroom in middle America. (Fade to black. We never see what happened next.) Later, Mary says to him, "You're gay, Freddie," and he responds, "I think I'm bisexual." That's as far as the conversation goes. The film is rated PG-13, so there's not much sex in it anyway, but he's shown in a romantic context only with Mary.

There's no other word for this approach than phobic. The relationship with Mary was hugely important to Mercury (he left his estate to her in his will), but the subtleties of the situation and the context of what it would mean to "come out" in the 1970s are not explored at all. The script makes it seem like Mercury had no desires for homosexual sex until Paul Prenter (Allen Leech) came along and showed him the way.

Paul, manipulative, cunning, controlling, lures Mercury into the gay underworld of leather clubs and orgies, far away from the goodness, the wholesomeness, that is the rest of Queen. Prenter—who also died of AIDS in 1991—eventually gave very damaging interviews following his breakup with Mercury. But "Bohemian Rhapsody" shows no interest in contextualizing what Paul, a self-described "queer Catholic boy from North Belfast," may have represented to the closeted Mercury, why Freddie was drawn to him. Maybe Freddie was sick of hanging out with his straight married friends and needed some "gay time." Nobody knew AIDS was coming. The people in those clubs weren't just biding their time in an orgy of self-loathing until a biblical plague was visited upon them. They were having a blast. A long-overdue blast. But you'd never know that from the film. "Bohemian Rhapsody" views Paul as a villain and AIDS as a punishment.

None of this is the fault of Rami Malek, whose imitation of Mercury goes beyond the famously prominent teeth. He taps into Mercury's ferocious energy, particularly in the concert sequences, all of which give you the electric sense of what it might have been like to be there in person. The single star of this review is for Malek's performance.

The film's reluctance to deal with Mercury's sexuality is catastrophic because his sexuality is so connected to the art of Queen that the two cannot be separated out. Refusing to acknowledge queerness as an artistic force—indeed, to point at it and suggest that this is where Mercury went astray—is a deep disservice to Mercury, to Queen, to Queen fans, and to potential Queen fans. Genius doesn't emerge from a vacuum. Mercury was made up of all of the tensions and passions in his life: he loved Elvis, opera, music hall, costumes, Victorian England ... and, yes, sex. Lots of it. Sexual expression equals liberation, and you can feel the exhilaration of that in Mercury's once-in-a-generation voice. You cannot discuss Freddie Mercury without discussing the queer sensibility driving him, the queer context in which he operated. Or, you can try, as this film does, but you will fail.

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

LOL! You don't know who I am[/QUOTE]

"Who you are" isn't your occupation or your accomplishments.

It is your personality.

And judging by the drivel that you spew on this forum, you don't have one.

If by any slight chance you actually think you are "somebody", give your head a shake and look at what you've instead become - an internet bully with a superiority complex.
[/QUOTE]

Well, clearly, clearly, I'm superior to you. Then again...who isn't? [/QUOTE]

The only thing you, and people like you, are superior to is the shit on the bottom of your shoe. And most of that you've tried to present on this forum as proof of your position in life.

[QUOTE] [b]Vocal harmony wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]YAFFF wrote:[/b]

LOL! You don't know who I am[/QUOTE]

"Who you are" isn't your occupation or your accomplishments.

It is your personality.

And judging by the drivel that you spew on this forum, you don't have one.

If by any slight chance you actually think you are "somebody", give your head a shake and look at what you've instead become - an internet bully with a superiority complex.
[/QUOTE]

Well, clearly, clearly, I'm superior to you. Then again...who isn't? [/QUOTE]

The only thing you, and people like you, are superior to is the shit on the bottom of your shoe. And most of that you've tried to present on this forum as proof of your position in life. [/QUOTE]

Spoken like the true cuck you are. Now go blow your nose after all this sniffling. And by the way..that "shit" on the bottom of my shoe?....well, it's obviously you, which explains your little tantrum. Don't worry. You've been wiped off and discarded now.

I've posted two reviews today. Can we get back on topic? Go ahead have the last word on the bickering. It isn't fun if you're not having fun too. And yes immature name-calling and bantering is fun even if y'all think yer above it. LOL

Yafff is right

YAFFF, Nice review and on point from what I hear....After I see the movie I'll give my opinion. Even though I already know you're right.

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a bad movie. But boy, is it entertaining.

By Ann Hornaday
Movie critic
October 30 at 5:34 PM
Rating: 2.5

We can stipulate a few things about “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We can stipulate that it’s not a great movie. We can stipulate that, in many ways, it’s not even a very good movie. As a trite, often laughably cliched biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, an enterprise that should have been as daring and flamboyantly theatrical as its subject winds up being bowdlerized, Wiki-fied, distortingly compressed and unforgivably conventional.

And yet.

We can also stipulate that, despite the myriad shortcomings of its parts, the sum of “Bohemian Rhapsody” winds up being giddily entertaining, first as an exercise in so-bad-it’s-funny kitsch, and ultimately as something far more meaningful and thrilling. Every now and then, a film comes along that defies the demands of taste, formal sophistication, even artistic honesty to succeed simply on the level of pure, inexplicable pleasure. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is just that cinematic unicorn: the bad movie that works, even when it shouldn’t.

As a whirligig tour through Mercury’s rise and tragic end (he died from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991), “Bohemian Rhapsody” hits all the expected notes: We meet young Farrokh Bulsara (Rami Malek), the son of immigrants from Zanzibar, when he’s working as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport, writing songs on the fly and making pilgrimages to a local club to hear his favorite band, Smile. When that group’s lead singer quits, Bulsara holds his own impromptu audition in the parking lot, wowing guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) with his soaring range and instant harmonizability. Not since Ally sang “Shallow” for Jackson Maine outside Super A Foods have the musical gods smiled so fortuitously.

What follows is the stuff of familiar history: Renamed Queen at the suggestion of Bulsara (who already called himself Freddie and went on to adopt the stage name Mercury), the band becomes hugely popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, creating pop anthems and an extravagant stage show that defies rock’s grittily macho self-image and proves improbably galvanizing. Meanwhile, Freddie proposes to the love of his life, Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), even though deep in both their hearts, they know that he’s gay. As Freddie’s fame grows, so do his conflicts: with his own sexual identity, with an unscrupulous manager, with isolation and drugs and, finally, with the band that made him a star.

These bullet points are dramatized with a metronomic sense of duty in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was directed by Bryan Singer until he was fired from the production, at which point Dexter Fletcher stepped in to finish filming and edit. That hiccup doesn’t entirely account for the pitfalls of a film that primary suffers from an eye-rollingly obvious script, in which real human beings utter expository dreck like “The album’s hit the charts in the U.S.!” Part of what makes the plot of “Bohemian Rhapsody” so dreary is that it doesn’t illuminate anything beyond what the audience probably already knows (or, just as likely, knows more about). Schematic and shallow, it flits from one hoary set piece to the next with all of the insight, surprise and psychological depth of a sanitized “Behind the Music” episode or unironic remake of “Walk Hard.”

And yet.

If anyone doubted that cinema is an actor’s medium, “Bohemian Rhapsody” arrives as indisputable proof. Even behind a set of distracting prosthetic teeth simulating Freddie’s famous overbite, Malek delivers a committed, thoroughly inhabited performance, which winds up transcending the regrettably thin material at hand. Considerably shorter than his character, Malek nonetheless masters the muscular swagger and captivating stage presence of a man who, when he sings in front of his first big crowd, announces that he’s finally discovered his life’s calling. Even at his most fey and alien-looking, Malek makes that statement utterly credible.

Happily — and crucially — the supporting roles in “Bohemian Rhapsody” are just as well-judged, As an end-credits montage suggests, the actors playing May, Taylor and bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) look eerily like their real-life analogues. (Watch out for an amusing cameo by Mike Myers as a recalcitrant EMI executive and for the great Tom Hollander and Allen Leech as the managerial equivalent of good and bad angels.) The best parts of “Bohemian Rhapsody” have less to do with Freddie’s tribulations than the mysterious alchemy of a collaboration between four self-described misfits that on paper never would have worked, but yielded uncanny and enduring results.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the film’s most gratifying scenes reenacting Queen’s performances and recording sessions, including a wonderfully invigorating sequence dedicated to the legendary title number, which was concocted over a marathon session and an infinite number of takes (all those “Galileos” climbing ever higher and higher).

“Bohemian Rhapsody” ends with one of the most memorable movie finales in recent memory, when the filmmakers restage, almost note for note, Queen’s appearance at Live Aid in 1985, a performance that went down in history as perhaps the finest live set ever, and one that convinced those who had dismissed Queen as a camp event of the group’s technical prowess and electrifying showmanship. It’s a bravura passage, in which Malek’s physical presence fuses seamlessly with Freddie’s slightly ragged voice. As he gains strength, so does the scene and, by extension, the movie, which take on weight and emotion and an inescapable, infectious joy. “Bohemian Rhapsody” might have started out as an ode to the supernatural talent of one man. It ends as a testament to a band, and simply how good they made their fans feel.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic elements, suggestive material, drug use and strong language. 134 minutes.

"Bohemian Rhapsody is a terrible song. But omg how I enjoy it. "