Review of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) by Linttaflamingo — 17 Nov 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody is easily one of the better music biopics in my opinion. It's not perfect, but it works both as an entertaining film and as a study of the legends, gladly in more ways than just a Wikipedia article turned to a movie script type.

Rami Malek gives an Oscarworthy performance as Mercury in this fast stylish film about how Queen came to be and eventually gave a remarkable performance at "Live Aid". It's a film that will mostly be remembered for its terrific studio- and concert scenes that were all loud and entertaining. The concert scenes have probably the best sound mixing out of all music biopics. The hard bass and drum sounds in the cinema definitely made it feel like a real concert. Not to mention that the music itself is some of the best rock ever made and still to this day sounds completely timeless.

But the movie also has to have something else than just music of course. And that's where it kind of succeeds but not really. The scenes stay colorful and stylish for the most part, but I couldn't help but feel like I'm more or less just waiting. The dialogue is pretty good and funny, but the film's pacing is all over the place. Sometimes it felt like the film's moving at goddamn light's speed, cramming all these different events in that are fighting to get screen time. It all stays very surface level since the movie has so much to say and sometimes it skips over events completely. The director also seemed to have some sort of ADHD when it came to the visuals. An interview scene uses a ton of fisheye lens and vibrating camera to the point of it being distracting. It compliments the point of the scene but it does not compliment your eyes. Also there's a concert scene that has these colorful city names flying to the screen, indicating how wide their tour was. That scene is a good way to get epilepsy even if you don't have epilepsy. Although I can safely say that I was never bored. There are a couple more "quiet" moments that are more of a slow burn which was nice, but the majority of the movie is yelling and people talking over each other. Maybe that's what rockstars do.

For those who want an entertaining film of four legends and good timeless music are going to be satisfied. Despite apparent historical inaccuracies, the movie at least feels very "movie like" so it was always fun to watch and especially the "Live Aid" concert scene at the end of the film is a great one.