Bohemian Rhapsody
Original post date: 27 January 2019
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Does this qualify as a jukebox musical? I ask because it seems to me the main reason for watching—and enjoying—this flick is the same as for watching movies like Mamma Mia!: to hear the songs. In this case, the songs are actually sung by Freddie Mercury, though at times skillfully blended through transitional bits with the Rami Malek’s voice and vocal support from Canadian singer Marc Martel. As with Mamma Mia!, everything else is kind of filler to get us from one song to another, except that Mamma Mia! had to actually come up with a story to work the lyrics into the narrative, while Bohemian Rhapsody simply has to show us the members of Queen coming up with ideas for songs. Strangely, for a work of a director of Bryan Singer’s caliber, this movie has little artistic viewpoint of its own. Rather, it has “Authorized Biography” stamped all over it. There is no classic Hollywood biopic shorthand that goes unused or unacted upon. In fact, it is so insistently old-school in its showbiz checklist that it is obvious this was a conscious artistic choice and, once you accept this, the movie is perfectly enjoyable on its own terms. More than any biopic I have seen in some time, great care has gone into ensuring the actors are exact visual facsimiles of the originals. This includes Malek as frontman Mercury, doing an uncanny impersonation and turning in a solid performance even while working with the distraction of false teeth. As to the character’s personal life, the film is oddly coy in the face of Mercury’s well-documented history. In this day and age, it is a bit strange to see a character’s sexual turmoil reduced to a few furtive glances and sudden cuts. Inattentive and/or unknowledgeable viewers may well wonder exactly how Mercury contracted AIDS. In the end, simply celebrating and recreating the music of Queen has been enough for this movie to succeed. Let us note that film is credited to Singer despite the fact he was fired from the troubled production because of his erratic behavior. Known mainly for his impressive breakthrough The Usual Suspects and a string of superhero movies (X-Men, Superman Returns, etc.), Singer clearly has his own demons to confront. When the time comes, I wonder who will direct the movie about his life.
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
Does this qualify as a jukebox musical? I ask because it seems to me the main reason for watching—and enjoying—this flick is the same as for watching movies like Mamma Mia!: to hear the songs. In this case, the songs are actually sung by Freddie Mercury, though at times skillfully blended through transitional bits with the Rami Malek’s voice and vocal support from Canadian singer Marc Martel. As with Mamma Mia!, everything else is kind of filler to get us from one song to another, except that Mamma Mia! had to actually come up with a story to work the lyrics into the narrative, while Bohemian Rhapsody simply has to show us the members of Queen coming up with ideas for songs. Strangely, for a work of a director of Bryan Singer’s caliber, this movie has little artistic viewpoint of its own. Rather, it has “Authorized Biography” stamped all over it. There is no classic Hollywood biopic shorthand that goes unused or unacted upon. In fact, it is so insistently old-school in its showbiz checklist that it is obvious this was a conscious artistic choice and, once you accept this, the movie is perfectly enjoyable on its own terms. More than any biopic I have seen in some time, great care has gone into ensuring the actors are exact visual facsimiles of the originals. This includes Malek as frontman Mercury, doing an uncanny impersonation and turning in a solid performance even while working with the distraction of false teeth. As to the character’s personal life, the film is oddly coy in the face of Mercury’s well-documented history. In this day and age, it is a bit strange to see a character’s sexual turmoil reduced to a few furtive glances and sudden cuts. Inattentive and/or unknowledgeable viewers may well wonder exactly how Mercury contracted AIDS. In the end, simply celebrating and recreating the music of Queen has been enough for this movie to succeed. Let us note that film is credited to Singer despite the fact he was fired from the troubled production because of his erratic behavior. Known mainly for his impressive breakthrough The Usual Suspects and a string of superhero movies (X-Men, Superman Returns, etc.), Singer clearly has his own demons to confront. When the time comes, I wonder who will direct the movie about his life.
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