Bohemian Rhapsody

***Bohemian Rhapsody*** is a 2018 biographical drama film about Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band *Queen*. It was directed by Dexter Fletcher from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten and produced by Graham King and Queen manager Jim Beach. It stars Rami Malek as Mercury, with Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Allen Leech, and Mike Myers in supporting roles.

## Plot

In 1970, Queen, a British rock band, sets out to achieve musical superstardom. At the same time, lead singer Freddie Mercury faces personal struggles pertaining to his ego and sexuality from the next few decades.

## Why It's A Champion

1. Having a film about the evolution of Queen is a pretty interesting idea in the first place, showing how the Queen fans really wanted to see one based on the band.
2. Bryan Singer, despite being replaced with Dexter Fletcher, still did a decent job directing the movie that he had amazingly directed the movies of *Superman Returns*, and the *X-Men* film series.
3. While it may not be 100% faithful, it stays true to the spirit to the evolution of how Queen was started back in the mid-70s.
4. While the music may have its flaws, the music sequences are actually pretty amazing to look at.
5. The acting was decent coming from actors such as Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, and Joe Mazzello. Rami Malek, in particular, was incredible as Freddie Mercury and portrayed him pretty well throughout the film.
	* In fact, it won Malek an Academy Award for Best Actor.
6. Some of the re-creation events during the evolution of Queen are actually true, as well as being decently done. Some examples include:
	* Freddie Mercury crediting his extra teeth for his voice.
	* Featherstone and other people did exactly think that the song "*Bohemian Rhapsody"* was too long to be released.
	* Freddie's relationship with Mary lasted throughout his life.
7. The 20th Century Fox's fanfare logo using the style of Queen at the beginning of the film (which was performed by Queen itself) is actually amazing.
8. Decent cinematography.
9. Most of the characters, especially the recreations of the real-life people in Queen, are still likable in this film.
10. The settings featured in the film were very pleasant to look at, including London, the United States, and the countryside too.
11. Decent story that nearly follows the real-life events in Queen's evolution, despite the lives of the other band members being inaccurate (See BQ2).
12. Most of Queen's music sequences were used in the film. Best of all, it has a lot of their songs featured, including "*Killer Queen*", "*Don't Stop Me Now*", "*We Will Rock You"*, "*I Want To Break Free*", "*Under Pressure*", "*Radio Ga Ga*", and many more.

## Bad Qualities

1. At times, the portrayals of Mercury's sexuality and the lives of the other band members are fairly mediocre.
	* The film decides to portray Mercury's sexuality and notorious party lifestyle as something to be embarrassed about for dramatic effect.
2. The film has a **whole bunch** of historical inaccuracies that show an infamous side of the movie. Here are some examples:
	* Mercury wasn't diagnosed with HIV before Live Aid. Live Aid also wasn't a reunion either, as Queen never split up in real life, having finished *The Works* tour just eight weeks prior.
		+ In reality, the time where Mercury was diagnosed with HIV is disputed but it's said he was diagnosed around 1986 to 1987.
	* The formation of Queen was not as simple as portrayed in the film. Mercury had known Tim Staffell from art college and had shown an interest in joining Smile, another band, before Staffell's departure. Mercury had also shared a flat with Roger Taylor before joining the band and had run a stall at Kensington Market with him.
	* John Deacon was not the original bassist, but actually the fourth.
	* The character of Ray Foster is fictional and loosely based on EMI chief Roy Featherstone. While Featherstone, along with others, did think that "Bohemian Rhapsody" was too long to be released as a single, he was a fan of the band. Also, Queen released numerous more albums and singles with EMI.
	* Paul Prenter did not become Mercury's PA until 1977.
	* Some songs are out of chronological order. For example, "We Will Rock You" was written in 1977, not 1980. Also, when Queen toured America for the first time in 1974, "Fat Bottomed Girls" wasn't written until 1978, although the film shows them performing it in several U.S. cities.
	* Mercury did not meet Mary on the same night he joined the band.
	* Jim Hutton was not a server at one of Mercury's parties, but a hairdresser at a hotel and they met at a nightclub.
3. The editing is pretty bad, as the scenes to jump from one significant moment to another without any flow.
	* A particular example is in the scene where the Queen members meet John Reid, which has been widely considered to be the worst edited scene in the whole film. The scene lasts 104 seconds, but contains 60 cuts, making for an average shot lasting 1.8 seconds. There are even shots that serve no purpose whatsoever.
	* Video essayist Thomas Flight has even posted a video arguing why the film is a "masterclass in bad editing."
		+ However, despite all of this, **the film managed to actually win an Oscar for Best Film Editing.**
4. The pacing is rather too frantic.
5. While Rami Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury is still amazing for the time, his lip-syncing to the songs are awful. It doesn't help that the director tried to hide it by choosing different angles to hide his mouth.
6. The film focuses on Mercury so much that it doesn't take the time to develop the other members of Queen. They just feel like secondary characters.
	* In addition to that, it does not explore Freddy's background with his family, which was one of the reasons for being part of Queen, however, in the film, his family appears almost as a cameo

## Reception

### Critical response

*Bohemian Rhapsody* received mixed reviews from critics, but was well received from fans of the band. While Malek's performance and the musical sequences were praised, the editing, Singer's direction, and McCarten's screenplay (particularly the portrayal of Mercury's sexuality and the lives of the other band members) were criticized. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 61% rating, based on 406 reviews, and an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "*Bohemian Rhapsody* hits a handful of high notes, but as an in-depth look at a beloved band, it offers more of a medley than a true greatest hits collection.", on the same site, it also had an 85% audience score rating on the same site. Metacritic gave a film a 49/100 "Mixed or average" reviews" and a 7.7/10 user score rating on the same site. On IMDb, it holds an 8/10 rating.

### Box office

*Bohemian Rhapsody* grossed $216.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $687.3 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $903.7 million, against a production budget of about $52 million.

### Awards

The film won four awards at the 91st Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Malek, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. It was also nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Green Book. At the 76th Golden Globe Awards, the film was nominated for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Rami Malek) and Best Motion Picture – Drama, winning both.

## Trivia

* The first trailer for the film was released on May 15, 2018, garnering more than 5 million views in the first 24 hours. It eventually became the top trending video on YouTube during that time period.
* *Bohemian Rhapsody* became one of the worst-reviewed films to win a Best Picture award at the Golden Globe Awards, as well as to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
* Original plans for a film about Freddie Mercury were originally gonna be about "gritty R-rated tell all" focusing on Mercury, while another film will be about the Queen band in a PG film.
* When the film was nominated, and won, several awards for Best Editing (including at the Oscars), it was criticized for several sequences having poor editing and continuity errors.

## External Links

* Template:IMDb
* Template:Rotten Tomatoes
* Template:Metacritic

## References

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dn8Fd0TYek