Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Bohemian Rhapsody is not just for fans of rock star icons Freddie Mercury and Queen, but it mainly is. I can speak with some authority as someone who isn't one. I'm sure some of the dazzling scenes here were lost on me, but others were rousing and a lot of fun, and I always appreciated the '70s rock star ambience. Admittedly, I may have been too hard on Queen in the past because I thought the only thing they ever did that mattered was the novelty "Bohemian Rhapsody" (not coincidentally the name of this picture). The song is a lengthy, intricate, and wonderful pop confection and it's exciting to see it worked out here across scenes of studio recording. I do wish they had just let the whole song rip at some point, the whole six minutes in all its glory, but apparently there was no time for that in a movie that runs over two hours. A good part of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" excerpt we see was also decorated with a score-settling barrage of bad notices from critics in the '70s. Well, fair enough. Like many a star in the hardcore pop firmament—Mariah Carey, Billy Joel, Chicago, Olivia Newton-John, and Celine Dion are names that come to mind—Queen has long been something of a mystery to me outside of the top 40 (and often within it) and I have more often been on the side of the harsher judgments. But you can't deny the love of the people, not least because it's a recurring feature in this movie, CGI-enhanced or otherwise. Queen fans might make this movie a hit yet via sheer willpower. A certain strong suit is the biography of Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara of Parsi descent in Zanzibar and raised in England, an interesting and complex story that was all new to me. Also recommending Bohemian Rhapsody is the performance of Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) as Mercury, bug-eyed and full of sparkling wonder with a looming overbite and sheer electric confidence. I liked Freddie Mercury during this movie more than I ever have, perhaps because it's the first time he's ever felt genuine, perhaps because it was still very hard during his lifetime to live openly as gay. But Malek might be effectively as charismatic as Mercury here. He certainly won me over. I also have to say I enjoyed the movie's versions of what I had previously written off as sports anthems ("We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions")—pretty good stuff, yeah. On the downside, the movie starts slow, loses its way in the middle, makes up shit for dishonest dramatic purposes, and is generally about 40 minutes too long, until finally reaching a heroic finish with a reenactment of the band's 20-minute set at Live Aid in 1985. That finish, and maybe an hour or so of Mercury's story, are good for anyone who cares about '70s rock. The rest is for Queen fans.