Not without flaws but giving audiences a good time

Rating: Null/10 (29 March 2019)

People like this movie about Freddie Mercury because they like Freddie Mercury. And it is not a terrible movie. That should be enough to explain its popularity with the masses.
We can all agree that Freddie was incredibly talented. And that's why he deserves that we look critically at the flaws of a movie depicting his life.
It took a lot of liberties with the timeline. The songs' vocals were altered, too, for some reason. The editing and cinematography felt flat most of the time. Only the writing session of "We will rock you" and the Life Aid concert stood out as memorable scenes.
In fact framing the movie around that event was a very clever decision. However, it went on for too long, I would rather have watched a YouTube clip of the original performance during that time.
A positive aspect are the performances, most notably Malek's. It's pretty spot-on as far as I can judge. But the script they had to work with was not as ambitious as it should have been. Another thing to note: The depiction of the gay scene and AIDS felt a bit dubious to me.
Nonetheless, you leave the theater with a good feeling after the end credit scenes.