Bohemian Rhapsody: A masterpiece to be seen

People everywhere fell in a crazy little thing called love (#sorrynotsorry) with the Queen biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” over the weekend and the box office reports show it.

The highly entertaining, and perfectly cast, story of legendary rock and roll revisionists, Queen, had a record breaking $50 million opening, making an extra $5 million over its projected figures.

This opening for a music biopic is now only second to the 2015 N.W.A story, “Straight Outta Compton,” which opened at 60.2 million.

The general public has spoken with their wallets, but not everyone seems thrilled with the movie, notably, critics seem to be really picking this apart as if every one of them is all of a sudden a Queen historian or excellent screenwriter.

None of that hate will be found here, though, with reactions being nothing but positive and the need to sit back in the theatre and watch it again.

Bohemian Rhapsody- Directed by Bryan Singer, screenplay by Anthony McCarten, story by Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan. Starring Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aiden Gilen, Lucy Boynton, Tom Hollander and Mike Myers.

The story of the British rock band who formed in 1970 is brought to life in stunning fashion and style that even non-fans can enjoy.

On the other hand, any fans of Queen’s music will be entertained and will enjoy this movie for the soundtrack of hit after hit alone.

Both sets of audiences, however, will have the same joy of being disillusioned to the fact that this is not a straight up documentary. This is all due to the tremendous casting and the amazing performances given by each actor that make you forget you are watching a movie, rather than someone who just happened to be handy with a camera as the band progressed through time.

The greatest fault that this movie has is that it is not long enough in some respects. There are only so many minutes in a movie, and with a band with such a rich history and long career, many details would have to be summarized if not altogether left out. This logical answer as to why certain events may have been looked over does not seem to make sense to the critics who claim the writers did a poor job.

These are probably the same people who would have slammed the writers if they did too much forcing it to be longer than the already lengthy 134 minute runtime.

The movie, almost like the band itself, is fully rested on Freddie Mercury, and, by extension, Rami Malek’s portrayal of the famous rockstar. Quite honestly, it is a performance of a lifetime, truly just a incredible envelopment of a person into a  character that sends goosebumps crawling from head to toe.

The biggest question surrounding the performance is whether or not those are Maleks vocals that we hear in movie, and in an interview with Metro, Malik gave them a definitive answer.

“It is an amalgamation of a few voices. But predominantly it is my hope and the hope of everyone that we will hear as much Freddie as possible. I think that is the goal for all of us.”

In the same interview, Malek described how he enjoyed working on the film and the recognition of what a chance he was given in bringing such a beloved pop culture icon to life.

“I am very happy with what we did out there. It was truly the experience of a lifetime. One that I will never have again. I can say that without question. I will never get to do that again. And it will be something that I will treasure for as long as I walk this Earth.”

It is not surprising that the amalgamation includes many of Freddie Mercury’s original vocal tracks over his entire singing career.

It is surprising, however, that there is a Canadian singer who has an uncanny similarity to the late star that also helped the audio team bring Mr. Mercury’s voice to the big screen.

For those curious to hear this mysterious Canadian vocalist, you can YouTube search “Marc Martel does Bohemian Rhapsody” to see just how similar he sounds to Queen’s former frontman.

Also on YouTube right now are a number of documentaries available to watch for free, but two in specific currently stand out as must-sees for Queen fans.

The first is called, “Inside The Rhapsody”, which focuses primarily on the story of the song most associated with the supergroup and the namesake for the current biopic.

The other is titled, “The Story of Queen: Mercury Rising,” which focuses more so on the band as a whole, while still shining the spotlight on frontman Freddie Mercury.

If you do watch these documentaries, you will find that this biopic did a fair job of representing the events portrayed and, even more so, that the movie’s casting director deserves a raise.

The brilliance in this casting and attention to detail is overly abundant in the film’s finale, with it being by far the best cinematic achievement in recent memory, with the cast and crew almost perfectly recreating the band’s legendary performance at Live AID in 1985. It is more than an homage, it is a true masterpiece of showing respect from one artist to another.

Whomever directed that sequence, as Singer was known to leave set for long periods of time, truly understood the magnitude in which that performance meant to the world and to the Live AID cause.

For those who are curious, the band’s legendary full performance at Live AID in 1985 is also available on YouTube.

Bohemian Rhapsody now in theaters, and it will, it will, rock you.

(#stillnotsorry)