Bohemian Rhapsody is the movie based on the songs and story of the British rock band Queen that was formed in 1970. Members Brian May and Roger Taylor were both members of a group known as Smile, of which Freddy Mercury was a fan. Mercury encouraged the group to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques and eventually joined the group as their lead singer. Mercury was also responsible for renaming the group Queen.
They released their first album in 1973 with songs like Keep Yourself Alive, Great King Rat and Doing All Right. It was in 1975 for their album A Night at the Opera where arguably their most famous song was unleashed on the world. We see in the preview that the band struggled to convince Ray Foster (Mike Myers), an EMI record executive, that their music would sell. While Freddy Mercury (Rami Malek) explains Bohemian Rhapsody, Foster comments about the song "going on forever. Six bloody minutes." Mercury quips back, "I pity your wife if you think six minutes is forever." Rhapsody spent nine weeks at the top of the UK Charts.
Malek got his start in film with the role of Pharaoh in the Night at the Museum Trilogy. He is most currently known for his role in the USA TV series Mr. Robot. After just seeing the previews alone, I don't know that there is even another possibility of someone playing the iconic role of Freddy Mercury.
We glean from the preview that the film covers their early days with Mercury just joining the band to their unique, cutting-edge, never heard before style of songs like We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody to the press's fascination with Mercury's personal relationship preferences off stage.
If you've read any of my previous entries when dealing with a movie that is "based" on something historical, while not claiming to be an accurate documentary, I choose not to do any research ahead of time because I don't want to sit in the theatre and nit-pick every artistic choice the filmmakers made to produce the movie. Instead, I just want to take it for what it is: entertainment based on fact. And I find Queen to be one of the most entertaining musical groups in history. One of my all-time favorite songs is Somebody to Love.
Like any fan of Queen, either of their entire story and repertoire or of just their few more well-known hits, I am excited to see Bohemian Rhapsody and just pray they do it justice. But, from the look of the preview, they far exceed doing it justice and incredibly capture what no other band in history could even come close to duplicating. I'm giving Bohemian Rhapsody a 4.5 Star Prediction. I think it will be entertaining, emotional, exciting, tragic and beautiful, just like their music. It's one I'll probably want to see again in the theatres and will certainly own in my personal collection. Am I right? We shall see.
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