‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ will rock you

Posted on November 9, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

Queen is one of the most iconic rock bands ever, so it goes without saying that the story behind such a band would make an interesting movie, especially with a lead singer like Freddie Mercury.

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” named after one of the band’s most famous songs, does an admirable job — although not always a successful one — balancing the need to tell the band’s story and that of Mercury himself. Make no mistake, this movie is about Mercury, but there’s no story to tell about him without the band.

Buoyed by an exceptional performance from Rami Malek (“Mr. Robot”) as Mercury, the film overcame production upheavals (and the daunting task of condensing roughly 15 years of history into 135 minutes) to become a really entertaining film. Of course, it helps that the movie has an automatically enthralling sound track, and learning the behind-the-scenes escapades that led to the various songs’ creations were some of my favorite bits.

The film’s director, Bryan Singer (“X-Men”), was fired from the production just weeks prior to the end of filming due to his erratic behavior, and at times you can feel the final product is not as cohesive as it could have been.

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