👍 (Oscars 2019 review # 5) Good movie that could have been a masterpiece.

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2019)

Bohemian Rhapsody is perhaps the audience favorite among the Best Picture nominees along with Green Book. It has a 8.0 IMDb rating and a 86% audience score on RT. The general audience have loved this film and almost everyone whom I talked to had a great experience. However, despite being one of the audience favorites in the whole Oscar race Bohemian Rhapsody is perhaps one of the controversial picks in the history of Oscars. It is clear from the 61% RT score that critics didn't really love this movie all that much. If you read individual critical reviews many say that this movie carved of all the edges just to make a passable PG13 movie. Though I don't agree with the critics all that much, I will say believe the critics for this one.
As this is a positive review the positives obviously outweigh the negatives. Many say Rami Malek was excellent in his role as Freddie Mercury and yes I totally agree. Though I was not familiar with Malek's previous works, he indeed is a solid carbon copy of Freddie Mercury. He delivers the kind of performance that will never be forgotten and with his charisma he just makes you want to just sing along. He truly did deserve all the praise he received and though I personally liked Christian Bale's performance more I do not have any complaints at all on Rami winning Best Actor. The movie was well paced over all and the performance sequences were all fantastic. To me the Live Aid performance sequence was absolutely phenomenal. The movie ends in a bang and I was just knocked out by how brilliant the whole sequence was. It made me want to clap and shout bravo when the credits started rolling. I can imagine myself buying this movie on blue ray and that is largely because of the fantastic performance by Rami Malek and the phenomenal stage performances.
The big problem I have with this movie is similar to the critics. Though I wasn't very familiar with the history of Queen I did know that Freddie Mercury was a very troubled man with many issues in life. I was very surprised by how this film touched very lightly on the singer's troubles and just went on ignoring them. Count me in as one of the people who didn't have a problem with all the historical inaccuracies, but I was a bit frustrated by how shallow this film decided to be by very lightly diving into the man's troubled life. Despite all the amazing performances and phenomenal stage sequences I was frustrated by how much potential it threw away for just being "Family friendly". First man, a movie I did have very mixed feelings about became inappropriately dark because of how the film dived into the regrets of the character of Neil Armstrong. I personally think they could have wrote the script in a similar manner to First man diving into the character of Freddie Mercury because unlike First man, this is a source material that is perfect for the script template used in First man. Yes I do believe this is a solid movie but I am frustrated to see how though they were easily able to make a great movie they chose to make a passable family entertainment movie. It is kind of like seeing a hiker close to the mountain top but deciding to stop 2/3rds away from the top.
Overall this is a movie I can understand why it is a audience favorite. If you haven't seen this movie I suggest you see it in the theaters or somewhere with a great sound system. Trust me, the performance by Rami Malek and the phenomenal Live Aid sequence will "Rock" you. I rate this a 7/10 and yes this is a solid thumbs up. Though this is a very good movie it is a bit shallow film.