Review of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) by Kimberly-Bonita D — 04 Nov 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody - YES!! The trailer potrayed every bit of truth of this movie. Phenomenal! No injustice was done to legendary Freddie Mercury. This is his story, even if it's just a drop in the bucket of it.

Freddie Mercury was quite a character, but he was a genius. He payed the price of being a genius. I always felt great lonliness in his music that millions of people sings to everyday and I could feel it every bit as much in this movie too. Rami Malek portrayed the role of Freddie Mercury to perfection. No one could have played that role any better. Not Ben Wishaw (though I love him) and most definitely not Sacha Baron Cohen who was first cast to play the lead and walked away in 2013 due to 'artistic differences'. And thank goodness he walked away... According to The Rolling Stone (2016), Queen guitarist Brian May said that the band "felt that [Cohen's] presence in the movie would be very distracting... The man who plays Freddie, you have to really believe is Freddie. And we didn't think that could really happen with Sacha." The resemblance between Malek and Mercury is astonishing! The casting in this film overall was excellent and I simply have to say I loved Ben Hardy's potrayal of Queen drummer, Roger Taylor.

Cohen wanted everything I was hoping this film would not be - more focus on substance abuse, sex etc. ("A Star is Born" did enough of that for 2018), and my opinion is very much in line with the surviving band members of Queen. Queen band members wanted a PG-rated film instead of going off the chart R-rated (which Cohen wanted) but let's face it, we don't need a film to tell us that Freddie was R-rated. Instead the focus was placed on what was really important - emotion and the MUSIC.

The fact of the matter is that of course a lot was left out of the movie. Malek told The Guardian (2018) "It's an arduous thing to tell someone's life in just two hours," and yes... How do you tell a legend's life story in only 2 hours 15 minutes? Freddie and Queen's story could probably have been turned into a series longer than Harry Potter or Star Wars, and Freddie probably would have loved that. Or maybe not... Malek said in the same interview to The Guardian "What's the nature of celebrating a life? Definitely not avoiding his death in any way, or what caused his death, which is the Aids virus. But I think if you don't celebrate his life, and his struggles, and how complicated he was, and how transformative he was - and wallow instead in the sadness of what he endured and his ultimate death - then that could be a disservice to the profound, vibrant, radiant nature of such an indelible human being.".

I think this film captured every essence of who Freddie Mercury was and his unmistakable genius and love for music. I would actually pay to see this film on the big screen again.