Bohemian Rhapsody

“Roger, there's only room in this band for one hysterical queen.”

Filmology Rating: 2.17 out of 4

Bohemian Rhapsody directed by Bryan Singer who has brought you a bunch of X-Men movies. It's finally here! The story that is pretty much public knowledge at this point, is finally told! Watch this film become the Queen of a giant mess (the king being "The Greatest Showman"). The film was maybe good. Maybe.

This was one of my most anticipated films of fall and the trailers looked awesome. I mean, the trailers looked great! And with 3 directors attached, what could go wrong!? I mean, how can you mess up a story that already exists!? To say I was incredibly dissapointed is accurate.

The movie is a mess. The first half of this film is so utterly incompetent and confusing. Luckily a stronger second half slightly redeemed the film. But the first half is so fast paced and doesn't let you attach or relate to Freddie Mercury at all. The film just does things. Like the first ten minutes were great, the pacing was good with slick direction. Then the movie's pacing goes off the rails and it just felt like a series of scenes edited together with no story. Feels like the editor edited this film with a pair of safety scissors.

The movie is just confused on what it wants to be; a Freddie Mercury movie or a Queen movie.

There is no character development at all in the first half. Things just happen. Like Freddie Mercury joins Queen and with no problem whatsoever and immediately becomes successful. Right away. You need those scenes of our protagonist struggling so I can care for him. No, instead, he becomes successful with no barriers at all. He literally just pulls “Bohemian Rhapsody” out of thin air like he was reading the script in front of him. There is no "grind" of coming up with songs. They just pull the songs out of thin air in complete and edited form and say oh that sounds good. There is no "writing the song scene." There is also a sparse amount of comedy throughout as well which did not really hit for me, but the audience seemed to love it. Also, Mike Myers is in this movie for some reason and he has this dramatic scene where he is shouting and I began to laugh because he sounded like Shrek. I mean, this film is a mess.

What was so disappointing was seeing this movie literally crash and burn. The first half was so utterly incompetent that I buried my hands into my face because I didn't want to see the film screw up any further. But, the second half is mildy redeemable.

The second half really slows down and digs into Freddie as a person and what fame can do to someone and that was great, only if I cared sooner.

Freddie Mercury was played by Rami Malek (Night at the Museum) who was perfect in the film. What a brilliant casting choice and he did a great job. I literally know him and Mike Myers and that's it. Otherwise everyone else was fine??

The last 10 minutes I did not care for because the movie literally ran out of story. The end of the movie was a big concert and it was way too long and was just fan service. The other problem is the music. It's brilliant music, some of the best ever, but it's all music that has existed for decades now. So it's just nostalgia while the music is played, which this film enforces numerous times.

This film was a bitter disappointment and has some god awful pacing. I would show up and an hour after the movie starts if I were you.

Rating: Skip It

-Nolan