The second biggest film in the best picture category is Bohemian Rhapsody, a drama about the trials and tribulations about the lead singer of the band Queen: Freddie Mercury.

Queen, being in the top fifteen of best selling bands of all time, and with Freddie Mercury at the front of the cultural nostalgic craze over Queen assured that Bohemian Rhapsody would be a sure hit. And it certainly was. Racking in a whopping 844 million dollars, Bohemian Rhapsody turned out to be one of the most successful movies of 2018.

However, the Oscars are not about who made the most money, but on quality of films released every year. Can Bohemian Rhapsody really stand against the other movies on this list? I would say: No.

Like Black anther, this movie is nowhere near bad. In fact, I can confidently say that this movie is great. The acting is phenomenal in this film. While Rami Malek truly impressed me in his star role as Elliot in the show Mr. Robot, I was weary of his range as an actor going into the movie.

Far surpassing my expectations, in the latter half of the film, Malek becomes Mercury. The two are indistinguishable from each other. The majority of the other actors are quite good, but Malek really just steals the show.

Malek is able to not only portray a convincing Mercury, but also to provide insights into the mind of this legendary singer. This was one of the most valuable things for me to come out of this film, information on Freddie Mercury’s life and how it came to be. Many insights were gained from the experience; Freddie kept in touch with his wife, Freddie signed his own record deal towards the end of the bands history, and so much more.

Despite the upsides, the film was severely dragged down by its negatives. As Bohemian Rhapsody is meant to be a crowd pleaser to die-hard Queen fans, the movie did its fair share of pandering to the audience. This was most obvious in scenes of the band coming up with the famous songs.

Far too much time was spent on the writing of hits like We Will Rock You and Another one bites the dust. These scenes felt extremely heavy-handed to me, and put me off for the rest of the film.

The biggest problem facing Bohemian Rhapsody was its script, especially in the first half. The beginning was quite dull and had terrible pacing. The story jumped around quite a bit, where one minute it seemed they just released their first album, and the second they were travelling across the country.

Despite the quite constant pandering and cobbled script, I was still able to eek out some enjoyment from Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s a shame, as the film could be absolutely magnificent if only some of its issues were resolved. So while Bohemian Rhapsody is a good film, it does not deserve to be one of the best.