Like the band Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody is for the fans. Unlike the band, the film is quite conventional. That lack of edge is somewhat disappointing (I wonder what a deeper or more inventive film could have been) and somewhat liberating (it’s a lot of fun on a weekend to see the band’s story play out in such a lighthearted way).
Freddie (Rami Malek from Mr. Robot) and the band members were cast as crowd-pleasing lookalikes, and they lip-synched the songs to Queen recordings. These choices, and a brisk screenplay that covers Freddie’s full life, take the film to a paint-by-the-numbers format that delivers more like a TV movie than the recent A Star Is Born experience.
That is, until the bravura closing Live Aid sequence, which makes this film worth ten bucks after all. The ending has a kind of magic that forgives all the flaws before. You'll leave the theater with a strut in your step.
In a nutshell: BoRhap has all the problems of a too-brisk, overly sanitized biopic and you'll see all of the rock biopic cliches play out, but by the end it will, it will, rock you.
Award potential: Malik, an inch shorter than Mercury, captures much of his larger than life persona, especially in the music numbers. He’s a front-runner for a Best Actor (Music/Comedy) Golden Globe win and should be in the running for a Oscar Best Actor nomination. The film could score nods for Best Costume and Best Makeup and Hair as well.
The Ten Buck Review: Eventually, it's worth ten bucks.
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