Elvis (Yes, The New One)

Elvis (2022)

78% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 336 reviews)

Runtime: 159 minutes

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann

Starring: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Richard Roxburgh, and many other actors in small bit roles

From: Warner Bros.

Believe it or not, this was the first Baz Luhrmann I’ve seen in full. Back in the late 90’s I did see part of his Romeo & Juliet; the fact that I did not watch it all says volumes. It was “try way too hard” for me and I never felt like giving him another shot until now. Of course, my film opinions have definitely changed in the preceding quarter-century so if R&J was giving a full shot by me, I may be singing a different tune. Considering I have a list here of movies starring The King and his music has been listened to by me since childhood, might as well give this a shot even if my initial reaction of experiencing the trailer was: “Oh, this could be a disaster in an amazing way.” Thankfully it wasn’t that, although one performance did puzzle me in a few different ways.

Indeed this was a flashy movie; often there are bright and vibrant graphics present and the editing was frequent, although neither really bothered me too much. Then again, this was at times exhausting and I started to feel the epic length by the end… I should at least admit that it is refreshing to see someone with such a distinctive unique vision in modern Hollywood where too many things are cookie-cutter & generic now. While I’m not sure why they breezed by much of the 60’s but otherwise I can’t really complain about what was and wasn’t covered. 

For years now I’ve heard different opinions on what Elvis thought of minorities & their culture; I’d rather think that he wasn’t a bigot who appropriated that culture. Meanwhile, the age difference was briefly mentioned & otherwise they tried to paint the picture that Priscilla was older than she actually was when she first met The King. You see, she was FOURTEEN when they first became “pals”, which is something I can never even try to rationalize.

On that sobering note, Austin Butler was great as the lead; talk about an impossible task to try and portray a pop culture icon who had next-level charisma. Yet, he did as well as I could have hoped; when I first saw the trailer for this, I thought it was possible that this could be “terrible, in an amazing way.” Butler did a lot to ensure that wasn’t the case. Tom Hanks, though… puzzling all around. I never thought of his Col. Tom Parker as not Tom Hanks under heavy prosthetics. Another reason for me to see the movie was that I’ve known for years the tales of how Parker ripped off The King and he was a crooked SOB; it was a surprising decision to center the movie around his character, yet I’m glad this movie made clear that he was a crooked SOB. 

One thing, though: did Parker have a heavy exaggerated Dutch accent during his time w/ Elvis? The few clips I’ve seen of him (video interviews are quite rare), he had a generic accident that almost sounded Middle American! That resulted in me laughing that the movie had the big revelation of how he was actually a dude from the Netherlands born Andres Cornelius van Kuijk… that wasn’t exactly a stunner as the accident was so stereotypical, he might as well have been wearing wooden shoes and talking about windmills! In any case, the performance was just bizarre; BTW, as it’s on Wikipedia I’ll mention a rumor that may just be baseless speculation: at the very least he was a person of interest in a MURDER back in his home country? Was it that which is why he was so against Elvis going on a world tour? That was a big plot point in the movie and for certain Parker was an illegal immigrant, which the film brought up. Why didn’t he become naturalized, though… it’s all very odd, even more so than what a great actor like Hanks was doing with his role.

For all the movie’s flaws, the cast as a whole was fine and it right as rain did present the reasons why Presley became such a megastar, why the women in the 50’s lost their everloving mind over him, and how he revolutionized music in general. The musical presentations are all exciting to view; the decision to have modern remixes or covers at times from the likes of DOJA CAT, though… that was a decision I didn’t agree with. Ultimately, this was a mixed bag which at least wasn’t a Cats-level disaster and now I am more willing to see more of what Luhrmann has done. There’s always a counterpart to this movie, which I understand is a much more traditional biopic, although greatly sanitized: the 1979 TV film Elvis, which amazingly was from Carpenter & starred Kurt Russell. Around this time next month on the anniversary of his death, I’ll watch an actual Presley picture as tribute.