Freddie Mercury is the Freddie Mercury-est Freddie Mercury who ever Freddie Mercury-ed. That being said, Rami Malek did one heck of a job emulating Freddie Mercury.
Let me preface this post about a movie by saying that I do not care about the little details. I am not one who looks for this or that. I go to movies to get away. If a movie can get me to suspend disbelief, bingo, it’s done is job. I go for the feel of it. Did the movie provoke me to feel a certain way.
Bohemian Rhapsody was all over that. It did an awesome job of showing how Queen developed, how Freddie Mercury came up with this idea for that song, or that idea for this song. It talked about his background, but not in a boring, ho-hum way. It really made you feel as though you saw Freddie Mercury. As someone who loves Queen, but was two years old when Freddie Mercury died, this was a glimpse of something brilliant. Also, how they reacted when they first recorded the song that gave the movie its name is pretty much what I imagined.
It also made me think of how much Queen means to sports. Who, when attending a sporting event and the home team is either leading, or getting ready to take the lead, doesn’t get crazy excited when “We Will Rock You” blares through the speakers? At least every other time a Reds pitcher strikes out an opposing batter, I think “Another One Bites the Dust.” And the Lord knows, I cannot wait for the day that I get to scream “We are the Champions” for either the Reds, Bengals, or Bearcats. Queen has interwoven itself into the fabric of sports and sports fans.
Rami Malek, though, was Freddie Mercury. For a little over two hours, Rami provided a performance that made you feel like you knew Freddie Mercury. You saw his rise from a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport to, possibly, the best performer of all time. All the while, you never got a sense that it was being over-played. Like Malek was trying too hard. He had exactly the right look, exactly the right movements, and exactly the right voice to project one of the greatest musicians that ever lived.
I spent $15 on a ticket to see the movie at the Rave-Cinemark in XD. Don’t even care. Movie ticket prices, blah blah blah, it’s worth it if you love the music of, I’ll just say it, the best dang band there ever was, Queen.
Sportsinnati 