*sigh*... If only this was directed by Bradley Cooper and starred Lady Gaga.
Bohemian Rhapsody is the long-awaited Queen biopic that has been in development since 2010 with Sacha Baron Cohen originally as the titular role of Freddie Mercury. After going through a multitude of changes behind the scenes, including a change in directors last December, the film will finally hit theater on Friday. Unfortunately, this is just another example of wasted potential. One of, if not the, biggest band on the planet deserves to have an interesting and well-developed biopic about them - but Singer fails to deliver.
Bohemian Rhapsody follows the life of Farrokh Bulsara (Rami Malek) as he meets a few musicians outside a club who happen to be looking for a new lead singer for their band. These small-time rockers go on to become one of the most influential and adored bands of all time: Queen. While Bulsara evolves into the extravagant showman known as Freddie Mercury, he struggles to fight off his own personal demons. Balancing his personal life, relationships, stardom, and sexuality all prove to be a challenge as Mercury's extraordinary life unravels before the audience's eyes.
Malek has proven himself in the past few years to be one of the most talented and versatile young actors. He was an incredible choice to portray Freddie and captured his essence beautifully. Malek was able to portray the nuanced tenderness yet outwardly flamboyant sides of Freddie throughout the different stages of his life. The chemistry between Malek and the other members of the band was fantastic as well. John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and Brian May (Gwilym Lee) were all integral parts in shaping Freddie into the legend that he is and the actors embodied their respective band members very nicely. The most emotionally believable performance, however, came from Lucy Boynton, who played Mary Austin, Freddie's first true love interest. The raw acting in their scenes together, especially towards the end of their relationship, was so hard-hitting and truly showcased both Malek and Boynton's talents.
The technical aspects of Bohemian Rhapsody were not nearly as satisfactory as the performances, though. The cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel was very underwhelming and had the potential to be much more creative, especially during the many concert and performance sequences. The editing by John Ottman was also quite underwhelming and outright atrocious in certain moments. While standard in its function, Ottman's editing was cut way too incredibly fast and never left me time to breathe, even during simple conversational scenes. Just because a film has plenty of footage and takes to pick from, does not mean that an editor has to and that is one concept that never entered Ottman's mind. The costuming by Julian Day was impressive, however, giving a very accurate and aesthetically-pleasing feel to every character in every scene. Music obviously plays a large part in this biopic as well and was utilized decently, despite Malek not actually performing the songs, which is ironic considering there's a scene in which the entire band voices their strong opposition to lip-syncing.
When you watch a biopic about a particular musician or band, it's pretty much expected that you'll have left the theater having learned something new about them, whether it's something to do with their personal demons or some other area of their private life that has been previously unexplored. Bohemian Rhapsody did not accomplish any of that. The information that was included about Freddie's life was presented so haphazardly and did not go beyond the surface at all. Freddie's battle with HIV and his relationships with his many partners through the years were a big part of his identity in the 1980s, but these aspects of his life were simply tossed aside as minor subplots. While the film did its job of telling the basic story of Freddie and the band leading up to the 1985 Live Aid concert, it did not delve nearly deep enough into either Mercury or the entire band to make the story remotely interesting. The writing throughout the film also frames Mercury's struggle with sexuality as the main reason for his personal failures and makes it seem like being bisexual was the root of his problems. Again, this iconic musician and band deserve so much more and this film did not do them justice.
The most evident issue with this entire production was the direction from Bryan Singer. Despite all of the horrendous sexual harassment and rape accusations, Singer is a wildly mediocre director. He does not have any notable style, which is a bad choice for a film about one of the most exuberant bands in musical history. Singer brings along his experience with directing X-Men blockbusters to this film, which, again, was a huge mistake. This "grand-scale" mentality is suitable for some of the concert sequences in this film, but not at all for the more riveting, biopic aspects. Imagine going to a concert for a band that you adore, only for them to not play your favorite song of theirs - that crucial part was missing.
Singer desperately attempted to squeeze in every detail of Freddie and the band's lives, but even with the painfully long 2-hour and 14-minute runtime, he could not manage to do that. The story throughout was very unclear and could not decide between focusing on the story of Freddie or the story of Queen. There is not a single one of the band's smash hit songs that were excluded from this film and while classic rock aficionados will be pleased, it felt much too stuffy. Many of the transitional scenes were simply recreations of legendary performances and because of this, it began to feel like a concert rather than a film. An exploration into Freddie's life would have been far more interesting, but this movie has regrettably bitten the dust.
Freddie Mercury deserves much better treatment than what he was given in Bohemian Rhapsody and, despite Malek's royally zealous performance and an expectedly great soundtrack, this film provides nothing more than what a quick Google search could probably accomplish.
My Rating: ★★
Malek has proven himself in the past few years to be one of the most talented and versatile young actors. He was an incredible choice to portray Freddie and captured his essence beautifully. Malek was able to portray the nuanced tenderness yet outwardly flamboyant sides of Freddie throughout the different stages of his life. The chemistry between Malek and the other members of the band was fantastic as well. John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and Brian May (Gwilym Lee) were all integral parts in shaping Freddie into the legend that he is and the actors embodied their respective band members very nicely. The most emotionally believable performance, however, came from Lucy Boynton, who played Mary Austin, Freddie's first true love interest. The raw acting in their scenes together, especially towards the end of their relationship, was so hard-hitting and truly showcased both Malek and Boynton's talents.
The technical aspects of Bohemian Rhapsody were not nearly as satisfactory as the performances, though. The cinematography by Newton Thomas Sigel was very underwhelming and had the potential to be much more creative, especially during the many concert and performance sequences. The editing by John Ottman was also quite underwhelming and outright atrocious in certain moments. While standard in its function, Ottman's editing was cut way too incredibly fast and never left me time to breathe, even during simple conversational scenes. Just because a film has plenty of footage and takes to pick from, does not mean that an editor has to and that is one concept that never entered Ottman's mind. The costuming by Julian Day was impressive, however, giving a very accurate and aesthetically-pleasing feel to every character in every scene. Music obviously plays a large part in this biopic as well and was utilized decently, despite Malek not actually performing the songs, which is ironic considering there's a scene in which the entire band voices their strong opposition to lip-syncing.
When you watch a biopic about a particular musician or band, it's pretty much expected that you'll have left the theater having learned something new about them, whether it's something to do with their personal demons or some other area of their private life that has been previously unexplored. Bohemian Rhapsody did not accomplish any of that. The information that was included about Freddie's life was presented so haphazardly and did not go beyond the surface at all. Freddie's battle with HIV and his relationships with his many partners through the years were a big part of his identity in the 1980s, but these aspects of his life were simply tossed aside as minor subplots. While the film did its job of telling the basic story of Freddie and the band leading up to the 1985 Live Aid concert, it did not delve nearly deep enough into either Mercury or the entire band to make the story remotely interesting. The writing throughout the film also frames Mercury's struggle with sexuality as the main reason for his personal failures and makes it seem like being bisexual was the root of his problems. Again, this iconic musician and band deserve so much more and this film did not do them justice.
The most evident issue with this entire production was the direction from Bryan Singer. Despite all of the horrendous sexual harassment and rape accusations, Singer is a wildly mediocre director. He does not have any notable style, which is a bad choice for a film about one of the most exuberant bands in musical history. Singer brings along his experience with directing X-Men blockbusters to this film, which, again, was a huge mistake. This "grand-scale" mentality is suitable for some of the concert sequences in this film, but not at all for the more riveting, biopic aspects. Imagine going to a concert for a band that you adore, only for them to not play your favorite song of theirs - that crucial part was missing.
Singer desperately attempted to squeeze in every detail of Freddie and the band's lives, but even with the painfully long 2-hour and 14-minute runtime, he could not manage to do that. The story throughout was very unclear and could not decide between focusing on the story of Freddie or the story of Queen. There is not a single one of the band's smash hit songs that were excluded from this film and while classic rock aficionados will be pleased, it felt much too stuffy. Many of the transitional scenes were simply recreations of legendary performances and because of this, it began to feel like a concert rather than a film. An exploration into Freddie's life would have been far more interesting, but this movie has regrettably bitten the dust.
Freddie Mercury deserves much better treatment than what he was given in Bohemian Rhapsody and, despite Malek's royally zealous performance and an expectedly great soundtrack, this film provides nothing more than what a quick Google search could probably accomplish.
My Rating: ★★
No comments:
Post a Comment