Of all of the filmmakers who might have made an Elvis biopic, it needed to be one whose aesthetic is extra Vegas bloat than Solar Studios leanness. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis lives up
to the swooning extra of his Moulin Rouge, even all the way down to its digital diamanté-studded finish credit. Much less a story than a deluxe jukebox musical with touches of Douglas Sirk melodrama, Elvis is framed as a type of Citizen Kane deathbed reverie from Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s Dutch-born, Mephistophelean supervisor. He’s performed by Tom Hanks with a weird, undefinable European accent, in make-up suggesting a cross between the Penguin and a papier-mâché effigy of Rupert Murdoch.
How Parker ‘created’, or somewhat enslaved Presley is the narrative drift, however the movie’s actual pleasure lies in its full-tilt comic-strip stylistics and a terrific efficiency by Austin Butler (a TV stalwart beforehand seen in Tarantino’s As soon as Upon A Time…). His Elvis is one thing of a coy harmless, much less of a assured joker than the unique, not fairly conscious of his powers, however rebellious in relation to doing issues his personal means, as on the ’68 TV Comeback Particular.
Don’t count on the darkish stuff – the decline isn’t touched on, nor his makes an attempt to ingratiate himself with Richard Nixon (this movie paints Elvis as a tender-hearted liberal). Priscilla, performed by Olivia de Jonge, barely will get a look-in. The movie is greatest skilled as a showbiz panto, with well-known names flitting by – Kelvin Harrison Jr as BB King, Alton Mason show-stealing as Little Richard.
The emphasis on Elvis’s debt to black music may need expressed itself extra subtly than with tarted-up rap recreations of his work – Doja Cat, CeeLo Inexperienced and Eminem are among the many soundtrack contributors – however then that is no extra a movie for purists than Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet was for Stratford-on-Avon regulars. Elvis is hyperbolic, one-dimensional and ludicrous – however as high-excess cinematic myth-making, it’s a blast.
