Elvis (2022) review

It’s a Baz Luhrmann movie; it’s as ambitious, excessive, overstimulating, bombastic and messy as I’ve come to expect from him in every regard. And unlike The Great Gatsby, it works (with about a dozen asterisks next to the word “works,” and maybe a question mark after with a higher inflection in the voice as you read). It’s maximalist filmmaking at its biggest, and regardless of if every Luhrmannism works for the films benefit of the storytelling or not, it is undeniable the astonishing extravagance that Luhrmann brings is perfect for Elvis Presley. The amount of times I have already used to describe how larger than life this movie is should tell you all you need to know. It’s one of those weird movies where everything that can be said as a negative about it are also what works about it.

The energy this movie has is radiant, never once feeling boring or disengaging for its 2 hour 40 minute runtime. For this movies narrative flaws, of which there are numerous, sometimes feeling like an unironic version of Walk Hard, the overstuffed and excessive story doesn’t feel out of place. Does the movie gloss over the darker and more controversial aspects Elvis’s life, or is it commenting on looking at the past with rose tinted glasses? I don’t know for sure, and honestly not knowing for sure is part of the allure of this movie.

Instead of the tried and true, boring, reading-through-a-Wikipedia-article storytelling of something like Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis takes the Amadeus approach and shows us Elvis from the perspective of someone in the stars life. In the case of Elvis, it is his manager, Tom Parker. The core of the film is the predatory relationship between Elvis Presley and his manager, and as a narrative hook for this movie, I can't think of a better framing device to explore Elvis Presley than this.

Austin Butler disappears into the role, giving an incredible performance as Elvis, but the same cannot be said for Tom Hanks, who I never didn't see as Tom Hanks in a fat suit. Hanks is cartoonishly evil, channeling Eric Cartman and the mayor from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs into the most ridiculously evil villain of the year. Like everything else about the movie, the decisions behind his character are unclear, but one thing is for sure: he’s fucking ridiculous in this movie, and he never stops being funny for even one moment.

While this movie may have been “better” if it was more focused in its storytelling, but it probably wouldn’t be nearly as engaging. In terms of flaws, this movie does fall into the trap that a lot of biopics do where they attempt to cram the entire life of the star into 2 and a half hours. Even though a big story is in line with the maximalism Elvis is going for, some story beats do fall victim the "reading-through-a-Wikipedia-article" trope, where focusing on just a few specific key moments would have worked "better."

It's far from being the best movie of the year, but for most fascinating, it's up there. The inherent excessive nature of Luhrmann’s storytelling throws one breathtaking scene after the next at the viewer in a way that has never been this enthralling. I love a big ambitious mess, and that’s exactly what Elvis is. Absolutely exhilarating.