While many of the funniest or liveliest moments in the film revolve around how the band made some of their classic tunes, it’s still textbook showbiz biopic storytelling. There are career highlights, concert recreations, and oh so many montages. What we do get, though, is every beat out of every rock band movie ever made, a Greatest Hits approach to musical biopics that visits every expected narrative landmark along the way without ever quite drumming up any real conflict to test the characters or to reveal what made them so special. The movie is credited to X-Men director Bryan Singer, who was fired late into production and replaced by Eddie the Eagle’s Dexter Fletcher, and while we’ll likely never quite know for sure just how much of the final film is due to which director, Bohemian Rhapsody thankfully never feels like the product of two different visions. Outside of Malek, the most crowd-pleasing piece of casting is a barely recognizable Mike Myers as an unimaginative record label executive who, in a very meta commentary, doesn’t think the song “Bohemian Rhapsody” is something kids will ever rock out to. Paul and Freddy’s falling out makes the former the closest thing to a flat-out bad guy in the movie. Allen Leech mines for sympathy in his portrayal of Paul Prenter, a former assistant who became Freddy’s personal manager. Malek receives able support from Gwilym Lee as Brian May, Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor, and Joe Mazzello as John Deacon, all of whom get mostly humorous moments to shine despite their roles being more thumbnails than fully realized characters. Expect Malek to earn a lot of awards season buzz for his flashy performance here. Offstage, his contrasting mix of vulnerability and self-assurance keeps the viewer invested in Freddie the character and in the movie even when the script is going through its cliche rise and fall of a rock star motions. Bohemian Rhapsody was always going to be utterly reliant on whoever played Freddie Mercury and, fortunately, Rami Malek is more than up to the task, capturing the magnetism of the operatic, often campy performer.
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