Roaring into theaters this weekend is Bohemian Rhapsody, the latest biopic about Freddie Mercury and Queen, which offers audiences thrills and sing-along moments throughout the film, but does so largely at the expense at character and narrative development.
Bohemian Rhapsody stars Rami Malek as Farrokh Bulsara / Freddie Mercury, chronicling Queen's meteoric rise to fame and the complications of Freddie's personal life. The film picks up with a tease of the renowned 1985 Live Aid performance and immediately cuts backwards to a college-age Freddie before he was famous. The film then largely progresses linearly, from Queen's inception all the way through their last moments as a group before Freddie's tragic death. From start to finish, viewers are gripped by impressive musical recreations and mostly nice performances to tell the tale, albeit at a sadly-thin level of insight.
Rami Malek is terrific as Freddie Mercury, completely owning the physicality and depth of his flamboyance and musical ability. Set-piece after set-piece seems forged out of a VH1 tape, which is a great credit to the team behind the scenes for creating such faithful adaptations of Queen's performances. The supporting cast is mostly strong, too, with Gwilym Lee as Brian May (Queen's lead guitarist), Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor (Queen's drummer), Joseph Mazzello as John Deacon (Queen's bass guitarist, and Aiden Gillian as John Reid (Queen's manager). Mike Myers even offers an enjoyable cameo that brightens up the narrative through dull moments. The cast's devotion to the story speaks volume's about their story, as they come across as genuine fans of Queen who are lucky enough to portray them, which adds to the credibility of their performances.
The issues with Bohemian Rhapsody, however, lie with pre-production and narrative decisions by the filmmakers. This film had famous problems while it was being made, with credited director Brian Singer reportedly abandoning the set often and causing mayhem for the cast, leaving to his dismissal. The tension off-screen is largely unnoticed throughout the film, surprisingly, but any look at the substance outside of the musical numbers reveals structural integrity problems. As a Freddy Mercury biopic, we learn surprisingly little about him and what formed his eclectic persona. We get a very limited amount of time with his family, which is largely pushed to the beginning, leaving the audience begging to know what events were formative for him and how his family viewed his transformative career. Another poor technique seen throughout the film is the boring and excessive use of meta awareness by characters. For example, when Queen pitches "Bohemian Rhapsody" to studio executives, the filmmakers took a nauseating approach in which Queen announces how revolutionary and world-changing the song would be, which is ridiculous and jarring as a viewer when the film takes itself hyper-seriously. Additionally, as a film centering on Queen, we learn remarkably little about the other members in the band (May, Hardy, Mazzello), outside of distinguishing features and surface-level details, like how May is a former astrophysics student.
This is not a bad film, per se, but does leave a curious viewer likely disappointed. Live Aid 1985 and the many other musical hits displayed here are impressive and enthralling for the entire audience. The filmmakers' decision to focus on music and performance delivers greatly to the scope and dynamism of Queen in real life, but consequently dulls out any information one was hoping to glean from an in-depth biopic. The scarcity of character interaction and intriguing story development leaves this film incredibly hollow, allowing a viewer to understandably see it as merely a big-budget music video.
RATING: 6.5 / 10
Sean Kelso is the editor-in-chief of CUFPe and a junior in Columbia College.