Bohemian Rhapsody

I was bemoaning to my daughter that there was some eight to nine hours for my wife and I to kill inbetween arriving at KLIA2 and departing from KL Sentral on the 11th of this month. Why not watch a movie, my daughter suggested. Which movie would you recommend, I asked back. Bohemian Rhapsody, she said. And so, Bohemian Rhapsody it was. She purchased the tickets for a cinema located at a sub-urban shopping mall and so off we trooped to the cinema.

Now who hasn't heard of this bio-pic movie? I learnt of it about a month back when a friend posted its trailer on social media. I was impressed because the actors who were selected to play Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor were almost splitting images of the real Mercury, May and Taylor. I had thought that the song itself, Bohemian Rhapsody would be played at the end of the film, as its highlight, but of course I was wrong. The highlight of the film was the re-enactment of Queen's seminal 20-minute performance at the Live Aid concert of 1985. It was done very well and breath-taking watching the segment up close. An in-your-face experience. Completely immersive.

Despite the musical inputs from the real Brian May and Roger Taylor, the film producers took creative licence and littered it with some historical inaccuracies. For instance in the film, Mercury had contracted Aids before the Live Aid concert happened. In reality, Mercury was diagnosed with this disease at least a year after the concert was well over. I am sure there were other instances as well.

Finally, I want to say that I did watch Bohemian Rhapsody a second time, in Penang. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to re-watch the biggest bio-pic movie in decades. I only hope that the next bio-pic, Rocketman, about Elton John, will be equally good.