If you're a Queen fan and know a lot about about Freddie Mercury and the band, then you might not enjoy the biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody.' However, you will enjoy the music and Rami Malek is magnetic as Mercury. He makes you believe that he really is singing. (He's not. The voice is all Freddie.) The story is more than adequate, a rags-to-riches tale of Freddie (ne Farrokh Bulsara), working as a Heathrow baggage handler, experiencing prejudice when the locals call him 'Paki.' When the band he is following loses its lead singer, Freddie seizes the mic and the rest is history. Like most biopics, its events are telescoped and many of the supporting characters are two-dimensional. And for obvious commercial reasons, the film downplays the amount of gay sex that Mercury had in his later years. (He would die of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991.) But Freddie's neediness and insecurities come through vividly. He never wanted to be alone.
The other members of Queen, Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) and John Deacon (Joe Mazzello), don't get a lot of time to establish themselves, but they're a visual match to their counterparts. Among the irresistible scenes is the one in which they record Bohemian Rhapsody: the band bewildered at having to screech, 'Galileo, Galileo' in ever higher registers, while the audience, with 20/20 hindsight, marvels at their willingness to go long with the foolishness. And the last sequence, their performance at Live Aide in 1985 is spectacular: Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, Ay-Oh, Hammer to Fall and We Are the Champions. ""Bohemian Rhapsody" might avoid any complexity of character or social issues, but Rami Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury will certainly rock you.
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