Critics love Rami Malek, but think ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is an underwhelming mess

“Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go.” 

Early reviews reveal critics aren’t exactly asking for an encore after watching the highly anticipated Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.

While the extended musical sequences dazzled critics, the consensus is that it lacks the bite of its source material — which kind of makes sense considering its rocky production history.

The original star of the film, Sacha Baron Cohen, quit after reporting creative differences with the Bohemian Rhapsody team and controversy surrounding director Bryan Singer largely disturbed filming, leading to his late-stage replacement.

All in all, it looks like the Queen tribute will try its best to rock you, but will more likely result in another fall blockbuster biting the dust. 

Check out critics’ takes on Bohemian Rhapsody below.

Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury is sensational

Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly:

The notion of an actor capturing his stage presence, let alone his fiery persona, in a film has long seemed as daunting a task as playing the piano solo of “Bohemian Rhapsody” while blindfolded. Enter Rami Malek.

It’s not just fantasy. Using gusto and soul, the actor delivers one of the most outstanding performances of the year. And he single-handedly turns the formulaic biopic Bohemian Rhapsody into a riveting character piece. This is far beyond an imitation — though if you placed side-by-side photos of Mercury and Malek in the white tank top and jeans ensemble from that 1985 Live Aid performance, you’d be stunned at the physical similarities. The Mr. Robot star embodies the very spirit of the flamboyant, often tortured musical savant. Forgive me for using the obvious pun, but it’s lined up so perfectly: He will rock you.

Tim Grierson, Screen Daily:

Queen would have been nothing without Mercury’s arresting, sexy presence, so too is Bohemian Rhapsody dominated by Rami Malek’s magnetic, frisky and unexpectedly poignant performance as the late lead singer.

Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t real or rock-n-roll

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

“Bohemian Rhapsody” purports to take us behind the music, but the film is so sanitized — so eager to share the credit, and so sheepish to assign the blame — that it often feels like a network TV version of a story that tries to celebrate people for refusing to sand off their edges… Precious little of “Bohemian Rhapsody” is interested in human beings and how they work. More often than not, the film makes you feel like you’re watching a group of talented actors cos-play Queen’s Wikipedia page, all of them fudging the facts whenever they get too close to making these rock legends seem like real people. Or — worse — fudging the facts in order to make these rock legends seem like real people.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety: 

So with a performance as commanding as Rami Malek’s at its center, why isn’t “Bohemian Rhapsody” a better movie? …  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. Freddie Mercury was a brazenly sexual person who felt compelled to keep his sexuality hidden, but that’s no excuse for a movie about him to be so painfully polite.

But it does nail the concert sound and spectacle

Matt Singer, ScreenCrush: 

Bohemian Rhapsody’s recreation of Queen’s Live Aid set is the movie’s clear highlight; if there’s one thing director Bryan Singer gets right, it’s the magical energy of a great rock concert. Throughout the film, the booming sound mix rattles your seat and reverberates through your body in a way I’ve felt at plenty of rock shows, but never before in a movie theater. While your eyes are never tricked into thinking you’re back at Wembley Stadium in 1985 (Rami Malek’s lip syncing to Freddie Mercury’s vocals is sometimes a little too exaggerated), your ears legitimately might be.

Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter: 

Bo Rhap the movie is on its surest footing in the music sequences. The experiments in the studio are joyous, the concerts properly loud, and John Ottman’s editing connects them fluidly, as when a bass-line doodle segues without a moment’s breath from the studio to Madison Square Garden.

Call it pandering or love, but Queen built at least one song, “We Will Rock You,” around the idea of audience participation, and the movie is, most memorably, a celebration of what’s shared, whether the band is warbling about Beelzebub and the inscrutable “Galileo figaro magnifico,” or thousands of ticket holders are chanting an anthem’s chorus of one-syllable words. The celebration reaches a thrilling crescendo in the final sequence, a powerful rendition of the band’s galvanizing — and money-raising — Live Aid set, which has been called the greatest live rock performance of all time.

All in all, Queen biopic is catchy fun—not legendary filmmaking

Alonso Duralde, The Wrap:

An object example of how a film can be entertaining and even exhilarating without being particularly good, “Bohemian Rhapsody” has the driving energy of a stadium anthem and the fizzy meaninglessness of a bubblegum pop song.

Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent: 

There are two kinds of Queen. There is the version immortalised in their 1985 Live Aid performance, when frontman Freddie Mercury’s soaring, sustained call of “ayo!” managed to sound like a proclamation from Mount Olympus. This Queen proved that every musical barrier could be broken, from stadium anthems to disco, as long as the audience were kept entertained.

Then there is the Queen that’s slurred out at karaoke nights: loving and enthusiastic, but superficial in its sincerity. The new biopic that tracks the band’s history, despite using the 1985 performance as its triumphant closer, is firmly a karaoke-style paean.