Before Austin Butler's Elvis Presley belts out a tune or even utters a word in the film, it becomes evident that Luhrmann fancies himself a showman. The camera whips around like a sports car doing donuts at a 100 MPH, the color palette resembles a Pollack painting that was composed with a liquefied rainbow and rapid dissolves bring the action into new locations/time periods so rapidly that it makes things like time and place feel like restrictive concepts designed to keep mankind in line. It's a fittingly glossy approach for a movie about an entertainer that had a larger-than-life persona when he was alive and has become an otherworldly entity in death. For the opening stretch of the film, this non-stop maximalism is a neat trick that helps distinguish it from other biopics while also showing off the immense talent of cinematographer Mandy Walker and editors Matt Vila and Jonathan Redmond. When the second act begins, this technique starts to feel pretty repetitive. By the time final act comes into focus, it becomes painfully clear that Luhrmann's flashy filmmaking techniques are being used to cover up the fact that he has nothing to say about Elvis the man, the artist or the God.
Calling Elvis hollow doesn't feel like an adequate way to describe the emptiness of this film. Its storytelling is so rudderless, cold and impersonal that it makes Presley's Wikipedia page feel like an emotional powerhouse packed with the exhaustive detail of a tell-all memoir. If Luhrmann harbors some kind of affection, fascination or even slight curiosity towards Elvis' music and legacy, it didn't make its way to the screen. Elvis' complicated, fascinating life story and deep musical catalog are reduced to background noise for the main attraction: Baz Luhrmann.
This movie is so openly in love with its stylistic choices that it's borderline shocking that it's not titled Baz. Every performance, triumph and tragedy involving Elvis that is portrayed in the film are just perfunctory details designed to serve as the gas for whatever busy, over-the-top montage or editing choice Luhrmann has cooked up for the scene in question. I'm as sick of watered down, generic life-to-death music biopics as anyone, but if the alternative is some egomaniacal director delivering the cinematic equivalent of an AND1 Mixtape for nearly 3 hours instead of actually exploring the person/group they decided to make a movie about, I'll happily accept safe, mildly entertaining fan fiction like Bohemian Rhapsody for what it is and never ask for anyone to deviate from that mediocre formula ever again.
It needs to be noted that the actors are in no way responsible for Elvis' failures. Butler looks and sounds like Presley every step of the way, Tom Hanks' choice to turn Colonel Tom Parker into a cartoony villain is fitting for a guy who was a career grifter and Olivia DeJonge may not look anything like Priscilla Presley, but her Kacey Musgraves cosplay is unbelievably accurate. They can't help that they got stuck in Luhrmann's deep void of neon-colored nothingness and their efforts deserved better than glorified bit players in a vanity project for a filmmaker who somehow manages to make chaos dreadfully dull. If Hollywood decides to produce an Elvis Presley biopic someday, these folks should all be in the running to star in it.
Grade: D
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