Elvis

Composite Score: 84.13

Starring: Tom Hanks, Austin Butler, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr., David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey, and Dacre Montgomery

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pierce, and Jeremy Doner

Genres: Biography, Drama, Music

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for substance abuse, strong language, suggestive material, and smoking

Box Office: $288.67 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Elvis is Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic, chronicling the rise of the King of Rock and Roll alongside his business partnership with Colonel Tom Parker and his eventual death in 1977. The film stars Austin Butler as the titular rock star and Tom Hanks as the infamous “Colonel”. It also features Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla, Helen Thomson as Gladys Presley, Richard Roxburgh as Vernon Presley, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King. Matching Luhrmann’s glitzy and pop-y style, the film received Oscar nominations for production design, film editing, costume design, cinematography, sound, makeup and hairstyling, lead actor (Butler), and Best Picture. It’s one of the more unique biopics of the era thanks to its stylistic flair and the character of Elvis.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                 Elvis has received some fairly deserved criticism from critics, mostly for its odd stylistic choices and for the casting and subsequent characterization of Tom Hanks as Tom Parker. Some of that criticism is valid, while some is a bit overblown. The biggest issue with Tom Hanks as Tom Parker is that, even though I do hate the character for all that he did to ruin Elvis’s life and career by the end of the film, I do still see him first as Tom Hanks and second as the character. It’s one of the actor’s more interesting performances because he makes himself deplorable, but it’s still just him with a bad accent and a fat suit.

                The real issue that the film has comes down to Luhrmann’s insistence on including the pop music alongside Elvis’s songs and the other era-appropriate music. Visually, the film is stunning and engaging. In terms of its musical resonance, the pop songs do more to take the audience out of the scene than to accentuate what’s going on on-screen. The pop soundtrack of Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby back in 2013 might be the best part of that particular film (highlighted by “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” and Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful”). The director’s aspirations to repeat that success fall short here as the modern hip hop and pop anthems feel out of place next to the classic country, R&B, and rock songs of Elvis and his contemporaries.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                Flawed as it may be, Elvis is a stylistic and acting triumph. The costuming and production design are on another level in this film, recreating the styles and eras of “the King” with artistic precision, full of outfits that shout “Elvis!” with every stitch and sets that match the ones used by the real King of Rock and Roll in his own lifetime and cinematography that moves at a pace unheard of in most biopics. Luhrmann might not always succeed in bring his vision to the screen in a universally pleasing way, but his execution here on Elvis is some of his best work, keeping the audience fully engaged in a biopic without ever losing interest for a full two hours and thirty-seven minutes.

                Austin Butler’s performance as the titular rockstar also warrants its own celebration. While he did not end up winning the Oscar for Best Lead Actor at this past Academy Awards, he was fully deserving of the honor and the hype that surrounded this performance. He did quite nearly become Elvis, playing the rockstar across three decades of his life, all with the same level of commitment and authenticity – even doing the majority of the singing in the film (something that the egregious winner Rami Malek did not do for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury a few years ago). Were it not for a truly stacked year of acting nominees, Butler’s heartfelt and true-to-life portrayal of this music icon would surely have won the young star his first Oscar.

                Carried by Austin Butler’s stellar leading performance and some excellent production choices on the part of Luhrmann and his team, Elvis makes its mark on the world of biopics and cements a spot among the Greatest Films of All Time. Not every choice Baz made in this film’s production was spot-on, and the Tom Hanks casting may or may not work every time, but overall, this film is a major improvement on the genre of biopics and worthy of your time. It is currently streaming on Max if you’d like to give it a shot.