Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Actor; Rami Malek, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
Won: Best Actor; Rami Malek, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
Bohemian Rhapsody rocks out as a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound.
I already know a vast majority of my readership will disagree with everything I'm about to say whether they've seen Bohemian Rhapsody or not because people love Queen that much, which is fine, but do know I'm separating my love and appreciation for Queen and their music from the film itself. I'm not critiquing this film based on the quality of music written, sung, and recorded 30-40 years ago (though there are a couple songs on the soundtrack which were recently remastered in 2011). I'm assessing the film independently of the music because everyone already knows Queen's music is excellent and the film doesn't exactly contain an inspired soundtrack since it's just a collection of Queen's greatest hits in a Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic. What other music would the filmmakers use?...
Though Bohemian Rhapsody is credited to director Bryan Singer, Dexter Fletcher swooped in to finish Singer's work when Singer was removed from the project late last year due to being absent throughout much of the film's production. However, the finished project did not seem to be the singular vision of either filmmaker or even an amalgamation of the two for that matter. What I watched was clearly a studio-assembled product meant to satisfy the surviving members of Queen to secure permission to use their legendary music. It's a surface-level examination of Freddie Mercury's life and Queen's music that loosely strings together prominent moments in the band's history and glosses over Mercury's troubled past (though it does fleetingly address his sexuality and issues with addiction). To put it bluntly, Mercury's Wikipedia page is honestly a more insightful window into the singer's life.
My biggest issue with the biopic is that it's severely lacking in depth, so I didn't feel like I learned anything new or interesting about Freddie Mercury or Queen after subjecting myself to a two hour and fourteen-minute long film which was supposed to be all about him and Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody is essentially a series of concert montages with doses of personal drama and minimal conflict or plot at its core. There are some inspired shots here and there, which can be glimpsed in the trailer, but those are ravaged by an overabundance of quick-cuts that I found to be somewhat distracting. It was almost as if 20th Century Fox mandated editor John Ottman insert a cut every ten-fifteen seconds in specific sequences. Much of this occurs strangely in simple scenes of dialogue between characters, so I have no idea exactly what transpired behind the scenes, but the troubles of this production were reflected onscreen.
What really irks me though is that people had the audacity to claim and complain that First Man "rewrote history" without watching the film and then boycotted the film for it to debut to a lackluster box office, but guess what?... Bohemian Rhapsody quite LITERALLY rewrites history in several instances (most prominently, by timing Freddie Mercury's AIDs diagnosis before the Live Aid concert to serve as an impromptu catalyst when he actually wasn't diagnosed till two years later), yet general audiences are eating it up because it's about Queen.
Now for some positives before my readers riot against me... I thought the casting director, costuming, hair, and makeup teams each did excellent work. All the actors were the spitting image of the respective people they were tasked with portraying thanks to their handiwork and choice selection. Rami Malek was absolutely superb as Freddie Mercury, exhibiting Mercury's mannerisms, sure-fire attitude, and spirited persona with the utmost confidence and flamboyance. My only nitpick is that I wish he'd actually sung the music because I find lip-syncing to be a cheap cop-out for the studio. I get that replicating Mercury's voice is a daunting task, but as a singer, I find lip-syncing to be incredibly lazy. Moving your mouth and pretending to sing is not nearly as exhaustive as actually performing.
As for the other actors, I wish they'd had more material to work with since their roles weren't very substantial in the grand scheme of things. The other band members seemed to be side-lined and just around to perform or have quick disagreements and subsequent resolutions with Mercury. I understand it's Freddie's story first and foremost, but a little more screen-time and focus on the rest of Queen would have been beneficial.
Before I conclude though, I'd like to share a funny anecdote and an interesting observation from my viewing experience. One, I'm usually a stickler about parents bringing babies in a theater, but there was a baby there who cried out "Mama" in response to the "Mama Ooooooh" portion of "Bohemian Rhapsody." I found that incredibly amusing and it was honestly the highlight of my viewing experience (The baby was taken out soon afterward). Two, the font used throughout the film for crediting artists and signifying the date is the same font I use for my logo. Now I'm going to cram as many Queen lyrics as possible in my conclusion, but to ensure my opinion isn't lost in translation, I found Bohemian Rhapsody to be reasonably watchable but quite uninspired on the whole. If you disagree, that's fine. Keep on enjoying it and don't let me dictate what you should/shouldn't like or get wrapped up in the semantics of differing opinions.
Sorry, but Bohemian Rhapsody is not the champion, my friend. I'm not sure if this is the real life or if it's just fantasy, but Bohemian Rhapsody ain't a killer queen either. It's yet another mediocre musical biopic which bites the dust. It's got mud on its face, it's a big disgrace, and it's kicking its can all over the place. But don't let me stop you now, if you're having a good time and you don't wanna stop at all. If you're having a good time, keep having a good time. Just open your eyes, look up to the skies and see I'm just a person, I need no sympathy. My grades are easy come, easy go, little high, little low. Any way my score goes, shouldn't really matter to you... To you!
0 Yorumlar