Disclaimer: The views expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect those of allgames.com.
Introduction to the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie Review by Ms. H
You may know that in order to create an entertaining story -- it must have an exciting beginning that will draw and hopefully keep the audience’s attention. Next, the story must have a middle to fill in all the details, and lastly, it should have an ending sometimes on a high note to bring all the scenes together and to a close. In my opinion, this method was used for the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.
Simply put -- the movie told an interesting story. However, the dilemma is what if the story is fabricated in some parts which helped it to reach this level of entertainment. By the end of my Mom’s Minute movie review, you will find out if any of the falsehoods in the film factored into my rating of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.
Plot of the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
The Bohemian Rhapsody movie is about Queen, the band that was popular in the l980s and l990s. In fact, if you watch the movie, there will be subtitles before some scenes to let you know the year actions are taking place. In a nutshell, the movie Bohemian Rhapsody is the story of the lead singer of Queen -- Freddie Mercury -- including how he joined the band and the events that transpired afterwards, culminating in a performance at the Live Aid concert that was held at the Wembley Stadium in London in 1985.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Acting Skills Displayed in the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
Actor Rami Malek played the part of Freddie Mercury. In my opinion, he acted more natural in the role during the second part of the movie where he seemed to be less flamboyant and wore his hair in a simple haircut. I think during the first half of the movie, the actor Rami Malek looked like he was playing a character -- almost like a “dress-up” or “costume” event instead of the real person. This could be due to the emphasis he placed on talking with his head back and his teeth positioned in a certain way. He seemed more relaxed during the second half of the movie.
The actor, Gwilym Lee, who was almost a dead ringer for Brian May did an adequate job of portraying the guitarist in Queen. If you research images of Brian May in the 1980’s or 1990’s you will notice the casting staff did an excellent job of choosing him for the role probably based on his strong resemblance to the original band member. Regarding the other players in the band -- they seemed to take a back seat in the movie, and even though they had speaking parts, they did not make much of an impression to me.
Songs in Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
A highlight of the movie was finding out how the band’s hit songs originated, which is always interesting to me. Among other facts, I found out that the song, “Another One Bites the Dust,” was written mainly to tie in with the disco type era music at that time. Interesting enough, “We WIll Rock You” was not written or thought of by Freddie Mercury, but by the guitarist, Brian May. I also found out that when the Bohemian Rhapsody (the namesake song of the movie ) was first pitched as a single, it was thought that since its playtime was over 6 minutes, the song would be too long for radio play.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Reality vs. Made-Up Scenarios in the Movie
I know that writers often change - consolidate characters and events for dramatic effect or to advance the story along -- so I was curious how much of this was done for the movie. I checked a few youtube videos before seeing the movie and found out that Freddie Mercury was fond of cats, so I expected to see a few cats in the movie -- which I did. It wasn’t until after I saw the movie and had an idea of how the band got started, that I found out via the internet that a lot of the facts were -- well not really true facts.
I won’t go into detail here but to say that literary and maybe creative licenses were taken with the timing of a lot of events in this movie is an understatement. I do not recall a disclaimer stating that the sequence of events in this movie did not happen as depicted in the film. I think a disclaimer of some sort would have set the record straight that this movie was not following facts -- except in a few instances. Instead, it looks like quite a bit of juggling of facts were done to make Bohemian Rhapsody an interesting movie.
Fabrications in the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
The Bohemian Rhapsody movie told a story about Queen which was not entirely true relative to all the details. This is to be expected, since it is afterall a movie. However, the writer seemed to have gone ot the extreme with these untruths, including how Freddie Mercury joined the band initially as shown in the movie.
That being said, I learned a few things about the band Queen that I did not know before; however, I did not get all the information from the movie. As I alluded to previously, some of the events were contrived, made up and changed for the sake of making a great movie.
Spoiler alerts: For instance, you have the singer auditioning for the band impromptu in front of a car (which did not happen -- Freddie Mercury already knew the band members); the singer was picked for the band at that time (did not happen); breaking away from the band to start on his own (which did not happen as depicted in the movie) and you have the band coming back together to play in what would be Queen’s last concert with Freddie Mercury as the lead singer at Live Aid.
Queen did play at the Live Aid concert; however, this event showed scenes where Mary Austin, a long time friend of Freddie Mercury, her son, and his friend standing together in the balcony looking out at him during his final concert smiling proudly. It is unlikely that this scenario happened since they were not particularly fond of each other. Also, news of Live Aid was not kept from Freddie Mercury as shown in the movie, and the band getting back together just prior to the Live Aid concert did not happen. They had recently played together before the Live Aid concert.
Assessment of the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
To answer the question posed previously on if the untruths in the movie will affect my rating -- I will respond in the negative. When I watched the movie, I thought it was entertaining, revealing and in some way inspirational when they all came together for the Live Aid concert especially when he had been condescending to the band members at the time of the split. The movie is relaively long, but due to the storytelling, and I emphasize "storytelling" -- it didn't seem to last as long as it did. If the acting skills of the lead actor were consistent throughout the movie, I would rate the Bohemian Rhapsody movie 5 Stars; however, Rami Malek’s lack of acting skills as Freddie Mercury will cost the movie ½ star.
Rating of the Bohemian Rhapsody Movie
Based on a rating of 1 star to 5 stars with 5 stars being the highest, I rate Bohemian Rhapsody 4 ½ stars.