Got around to watching Bohemian Rhapsody finally. Had great expectations of the movie given who it was about. Almost seemed impossible to disappoint with the right cast of actors for the roles. And that was not a problem - Rami Malek is just about the perfect Freddie Mercury. Yet, it does not work, despite Malek and despite the fantastic music, it still does does not work.
It almost felt as if the film-makers picked a good cast, handed them a screenplay and then let them figure things out on their own. The directorial effort was greatly lacking to say nothing of the editing. It made a caricature out of the flamboyant character that Freddie Mercury was - over-rotating on depicting the personality not on the music making and failing to do justice to either. I stuck with the movie about three quarters of the way to listen to the music, many of the tracks I had not heard in a very long time.
It was wonderful to recall the times when I first heard the music of Queen - the early part of college, meeting people from backgrounds very unlike mine. There were the army brats, kids whose fathers worked abroad and were raised by the mother but heavily influenced by the cultural infusion that took place when the fathers came home for their annual vacation. These kids had the best collection of tapes and knew of bands and artists us mundane folks had never heard about. So it was great to reconnect with the music that I loved then and still do, but what a disappointment of a movie.
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