Bohemian Rhapsody Critics’ Review: Cliched and Weak Storytelling

Rami Malek has turned in a tremendous performance.

Film: Bohemian Rhapsody
Director: Bryan Singer
Cast: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee

Here are excerpts from the reviews of Bohemian Rhapsody:

...“Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t a comprehensive bio-pic, nor a full-spectrum consideration of Mercury’s life—it is a clearly and carefully oriented vision of his career. It’s mostly interested in his private life in relation to a single big idea: success and its price.  

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Bohemian Rhapsody” manages to rush a film nearly three hours in length with a weak story and poor editing. It’s unconfident in Queen’s story and adds its own elements of drama to spice up a story that was already fantastic. Awkward writing and underwhelming musical performances leave the viewer wondering why they don’t just watch a few live clips on YouTube. Several inaccuracies and its insertion of Hollywood platitudes in its ending leaves “Bohemian Rhapsody” another biopic which bites the dust.  

Brandon Drick, Red and Black

Directed by Bryan Singer, who is now officially credited (after rumors that his name might be taken off the picture due to his failure to show up on set during the final weeks of filming late last year), the movie, despite its electrifying subject, is a conventional, middle-of-the-road, cut-and-dried, play-it-safe, rather fuddy-duddy old-school biopic, a movie that skitters through events instead of sinking into them. And it treats Freddie’s personal life — his sexual-romantic identity, his loneliness, his reckless adventures in gay leather clubs — with kid-gloves reticence, so that even if the film isn’t telling major lies, you don’t feel you’re fully touching the real story either. 

Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Like Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody is three parts good but not terribly exciting, and one part absolute joyful, fabulous entertainment that makes you forget everything else around it.  

Olly Richards, Empire

There’s a tacky little word one can throw around for movies like this, but it’s so fitting: clichéd. Bohemian Rhapsody is like watching 40 years of musical biopic tropes in brief, shortened and scrubbed and marketed within a bank-friendly PG-13 presentation. Wikipedia-level beginnings, band consternations and growth, excess and artistry losing its way only to find itself again in a big, final moment and/or concert.

Blake Goble, Consequence of Sound