Bohemian Rhapsody Movie Review

Boys and girls I don't know if you knew this about me, but I was (I still am) a big Queen fan, so much so I still know all the lyrics of the songs even to the disco album.

I was in Ireland when journalist Lesley-Ann Jones a member of Queen's inner circle launched the biography of Freddie Mercury when again their music was in heavy rotation on the radio, so this movie was something not to be missed.

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Still, I live in trilingual Luxembourg now, where most of the movies in the cinema are dubbed if the original is in English, and this is not a movie to watch in French, it simply isn't. Also, I wanted to see it at the cinema and not at home on Netflix in the future years or on DVD, I wanted the experience my friends in Ireland told me about. About singing in the cinema, about Bohemian Rhapsody merch being sold at the entrance, about people taking pictures with the cast members of at least with some very big posters, that's what I've imagined.

Again, I live in trilingual Luxembourg, in boring Luxembourg I might say. In one of the most well known cinemas in the Grand Duchy, Kinepolis in Kirchberg I had as a bad experience I could get. The only fast food there is Mc Donalds and the fancy restaurants around the cinema don't serve food fast, which is what you kinda want when you head to the movies after work. Something to grab on the go. No way.

I had to queue for 15 minutes in Mc, gobble a burger with chicken (so they say), had a big Sprite I had to throw away because I was not allowed inside the cinema with drinks from Mc, although they also sell drinks and Mc is literally 2 metres away from the entrance, inside we had to queue again for popcorn and rush to the theatre to be on time only to wait another 20 minutes because guess what, if they say on the ticket that the movie starts at 19.15, it will actually start at 19.45 and not only that, once the movie started they still let people inside, rude people with their flashlight on their phones on, to find their place. Guess what you dick, your flashlight was in everyone's eyes!

That's a great movie experience in the Grand Duchy, everywhere else a very shitty one, but let's continue. I had to rant about that here, cause if not here, where?

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For me, the movie was great. I even cried at some point. The lead actor did an excellent job and overall I liked the movie. Was there room for improvement? Of course there was and from my part the more biopics about Queen (to set the truth strait) the better.

I did not get why the teeth? Rami Malek has a similar bone structure to Freddie Mercury so I felt the teeth in some scenes were unnecessary. Why blue eyes? I mean you went as far as to create some false teeth and forgot about coloured eye contacts?

The other actors were also well chosen and in some ways made similar to Queen's band members. I thought Joseph Mazzello in particular was one on one with John Deacon. Here I have to ask why his part was somehow minimised in the movie? Is it maybe because Bryan May and Roger Taylor were executive producers or something and John Deacon wasn't.

I've liked the subtle jokes in the dialogue, the ones made especially because former band members were involved in making the movie, in particular the one about Bryan May's hair or Roger Taylor family life.

I would have liked to see more about their creative process in making the songs and the albums, in choosing the songs to be played at Live Aid and their order, and less about Freddie Mercury's personal life. Also it did not sit well to see that Freddie was the one splitting the band when in fact it was not him, as other band members (Roger Taylor) had solo projects before Freddie.

I don't know much about Freddie's relationship with Mary Austin, except that she maybe was the love of his life, she surely was a good friend, a special one in fact, but I think the movie puts her in a place she did not have. Also I would have liked to see more the interaction Freddie had with other singers of those times, such as David Bowie, Elton John, Michael Jackson. I don't know if it's true but in the first scenes of the movie you could see Bono and the U2 band members exiting the Live Aid scene, at least something like that if not real scenes. As I've said I would have liked to see more of Freddie's professional life and less of the personal. But that's just me.

I think also it was an amazing effort to squeeze most of Queen's career into a single movie, so I understand some of the aspects had to be left out.

I loved their wardrobe, the lizard jacket in particular, I hope someone gets the idea to reproduce it and I hope the movie would do well enough as Primark to create a clothing line inspired by it or something similar. I dream about the yellow leather jacket since I was a kid.

Here I have to point out (as some of you asked) in the scene where Freddie tells Mary he is bisexual, that is not a Romanian Blouse. The correct term would be an embroidered t-shirt inspired by a Romanian Blouse. There is a well known photo of Freddie and Mary in which she wears a short sleeve Hungarian blouse and maybe the one in the movie was the next best thing. I've seen the pattern on one of the shops selling similar blouses on Facebook, but it disappeared and I for one hope it stays that way, cause that is not a Romanian Blouse. In the 70's and early 80's those blouses were very popular, were indeed inspired by Romanian Blouses but were to say the least, the commercial (read cheap) version of the authentic ones. So it makes sense one to be in the movie as young women would often wear them.

Going back to the movie, as a fan of Queen I consider it to be an OK one. My regret is not living in Ireland right now and having to settle with Luxembourg. Still I have to say that the movie theatre was almost 90% full (despite of the lack of promotion of the movie in the Grand Duchy) and that most of the people stayed in their seats until the last credits rolled out of the screen. As I am that weird one who reads the credits. The movie had German (I think) subtitles and it was in English and to be fair all of the people around my seat were English speakers, so that was reassuring :)

At the exist I've spotted a poster of the movie and started taking pictures with it and there were also 10 or more people who followed my example. So why Kinepolis you did not invest in a cardboard with Queen or something to take pictures with?

Overall, I hope the movie would bring back Queen on the radio (of course not the ones in Luxembourg, I talk about real radios) and make them known to the younger generations. They really need to listen to real music (lyrics and all) and not what I'm hearing now played by my adolescent neighbour. And I hope in this day and age we can talk freely about what happened and remember Freddie for what he left behind. Did you know that he recorded until the day he died?

I hope you loved reading this post as much as I loved putting it together! Also, if you fancy keeping in contact with me, drop a line at Dichisuri.ro on Facebook.

Raluca