Film Review - Elvis (2022)

 Elvis is the new film by Baz Luhrmann and stars Austin Butler as Elvis Presley and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker his longtime manager who discovers him at a local carnival in 1950s America and then guides him to enormous success and fame even if that starts to come at a cost.

 

Elvis was another film I was very much looking forward to as I am a huge Baz Luhrmann fan and have liked all of his movies with the exception of 2008’s Australia which was a near complete total misfire on almost every front, I love the Red Curtain movies and even think the Great Gatsby from 2013 is underrated despite its mishandling of Daisy but could Baz make the King sing or drown him in a pile of glitter.

 

Well this is very much a case of the former as I was not disappointed in this movie and first off I must talk about Austin Butler who will next be seen as the new Feyd in Dune Part 2 next year is simply outstanding and then some in this movie, the way he embodies Elvis both as a performer and as a man simply must be seen to be believed, he knocks this role out of the park and then some and it is simply captivating to watch him here and like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge or DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Debicki in the Great Gatsby you are seeing a star being forged in the fire and rising to the occasion.

 

I’m now a lot more keen to see him as Feyd in Dune next year after watching him here for all I see here is a Star I want to see more of.

 

As for Tom Hanks he is fine but his makeup work at times reminded me a lot of the Penguin from Batman and we just had a new Penguin recently in Colin Farrell in the new Batman movie back in March and his accent here at times gets a little silly but I went with it enough for it to not bother me even though the makeup work did at times.

 

As for Baz’s direction well its Baz doing what Baz does, turning it all the way up to 15 with the kind of energetic direction and editing that only he can and it’s a style that is not for everyone but it is certainly for me and here I think it works well enough that it won me over.

 

However I must say that as much as I like this movie it is also too long, it goes for 159 minutes and when it ends and the lights come up you feel like your bottom’s gone numb in your cinema seat and that you’ve sat there for about 3 hours or so and I think this movie could’ve lost a good 10-15 or so and not lost too much in terms of the storytelling and characterization especially when Gatsby ran for about 142 minutes and didn’t feel long at all at least for me.

 

And so that was Elvis and like Minions 2 I was not disappointed and would probably rank it third in my BazMark ranking only behind Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge and I will be keen to see it again despite it being too long, 3 and a half out of 5.