Bohemian Rhapsody 2018

      Farrokh Bulsara likes to go to clubs for the music in the 1970’s in London.  He meets a band that’s just lost their lead singer.  Farrokh asks if he can be the singer?  One of the band members replies, “Not with those teeth.”  They change their minds when they hear Farrokh sing.  Inside Farrokh is a shy kid and his parents want him to get a respectable job.  Farrokh does work as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport.  Farrokh changes his name to Freddie Mercury and everything about his life and the band changes. During their first performance, they just get one catcall, “Paki.”  Freddie is an Indian Parsi refugee from Aanzibar.  Suddenly they are now Queen and they are touring the world. 

     Freddie has a friend and her name is Mary, they wanted to get married but things changed.  Mary remained his one true friend throughout Freddie’s career.  Later, after he broke up the band, he had hangers on that wanted the touch of fame and a free meal ticket.  Freddie had a fantastic voice range and boundless energy.  Freddie was a real genius but this film wants to skirt around Freddie being gay?  Freddie loved Elvis, Opera, music halls, costumes, Victorian England and men.  He also loved Mary, his one true love!!   I thought this film was fabulous and I really loved the music!!!   5* (I really loved this movie)

134 min, Bio directed by Bryan Singer with Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazello, Aidan Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker, Meneka Das, Ace Bhatti, Priya Blackburn, Dermot Murphy, Dickie Beau.

Note:  Imdb 8.1 out of 10, Rotten Tomatoes 61% critic 86% audience, Metacritic 49 out of 100 with 50 critics 7.8 out of 10 with 902 reviews, Roger Ebert 1* Sheila O’Malley, RollingStone 3* out of 5* Peter Travers, The Guardian 2* out of 5* Steve Rose, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 3806 reviews. 

Special Note:  British choreographer and movement coach Polly Bennett worked closely with Rami to perfect every nuance of Freddie’s mannerisms.  Rami Malek was fitted with special prosthetic teeth to recreate Freddie’s prominent overbite.  Rami kept the teeth as a memento and he had them cast in gold.  Freddie had two extra incisor teeth and that gave him a larger mouth and a higher voice range.  Canadian singer Marc Martel does the singing as Freddie.  A seamless mix of Marc’s voice and Freddie’s together on top of Rami Malek’s voice was used for the vocals.