'ELVIS'

Elvis author-researcher, Paul Bélard, reviews Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis'

Prolific Elvis author, Paul Bélard, wrote down his detailed thoughts after watching the Elvis biopic.

His energetic review is great reading..

For added interest EIN has also assembled a “baker’s dozen” of excerpts from a variety of other reviews for the new Elvis biopic...

Check out these Elvis books by Paul Bélard - as reviewed by EIN

Elvis A Humanitarian

Elvis Black and White to Technicolor

Elvis 1956 - First Ed Sullivan Show

Elvis January - February 1956

Elvis September 1958 Germany Bound

Elvis March 1960

'Elvis The King of the Rings Vol 1':

'Don't Be Cruel, Elvis: The Bill Black Story':

More Elvis biopic film reviews: EIN has assembled a “baker’s dozen” of excerpts from a variety of other reviews for the new Elvis biopic:

This visually spectacular, inventively crafted old school Hollywood fable doesn’t know quite when to quit. But in its own imperfect fashion, it rediscovers the joy of Elvis.
(Joanna Psaros, The Review Geek)

The emphasis on Elvis’s debt to black music might have expressed itself more subtly than with tarted-up rap recreations of his work – Doja Cat, CeeLo Green and Eminem are among the soundtrack contributors – but then this is no more a film for purists than Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet was for Stratford-on-Avon regulars. Elvis is hyperbolic, one-dimensional and ludicrous – but as high-excess cinematic myth-making, it’s a blast.
(Jonathan Romney, Uncut, UK)

The soundtrack shakes up the expected playlist with jolts of hip-hop (extended into a suite over the final credits), slivers of techno and slatherings of synthetic film-score schmaltz. (The composer and executive music producer is Elliott Wheeler.) The sonic message — and the film’s strongest argument for its subject’s relevance — is that Presley’s blend of blues, gospel, pop and country continues to mutate and pollinate in the musical present. There’s still a whole lot of shaking going on.
(A.O. Scott, New York Times)

Moulin Rouge! is probably still Baz Luhrmann’s best film, but 'ELVIS' is his “most” film. Everything in Elvis is turned up to eleven, pretty much all of the time. Elvis super-fans might take issue with the way certain key events in The King’s life are represented, Luhrmann clearly has next-to-no interest in Elvis’ flash-in-the-pan film career and if you’re not already a fan this more-is-more directorial style this certainly won’t change that. What Elvis really succeeds at is capturing the revolutionary spirit of arguably the biggest American music icon, and showcases his unmatched and far-ranging back catalogue in performance scenes that live up to the promise of the Greatest Show on Earth. (Sam Sewell-Peterson, The Film Magazine) Elvis clearly has ambitions to be the definitive, epic take on the life of the King of Rock and Roll. But in its desire to fit everything in, it skims the surface rather than taking the time to dig deeper in search of a nugget of truth. Fans of the singer will get everything they want from Butler’s lithe performance and the show-stopping glitz of the musical numbers, but nobody will learn anything they didn’t already know. This is the story of an extraordinary man told by an extraordinary director, which makes it all the more disappointing when it feels like just another music biopic – one that loves its sparkle more than its story. (Tom Beasley, Film Stories) Baz Luhrmann couldn’t help but make his take on the king of rock and roll, simply titled Elvis, as outlandish, style-obsessed, and paranoia-stricken as possible, perhaps to outrun the easy comparisons to Walk Hard through sheer speed of gyration. That’s the thing, Luhrmann has never been content with adapting novels, plays, or in this case a musical career without filtering it through his signature flourishes. Not just to make the film loud, unpredictable, and unwieldy in its storytelling approach, but to somehow satisfyingly capture the fable of Elvis Presley by indeed making a fable of his own. (Jon Negroni, The Young Folks)

....most emphatically, this is a film that explores Presley’s destructive relationship with his live audience. These scenes are among the most electrifying in the film, with Presley causing girls to scream and lustfully worship him in a way he initially doesn’t comprehend, but that becomes addictive. He is as hooked on his audience as much as they are on him, but the audience becomes insatiable. There’s a predatory, dangerous undercurrent to these scenes, as his fans all but devour him.
(Simon Dillon, Medium.com)

Swirling and frenzied yet clever and considered, 'Elvis' is a triumph. Stellar performances from leading actors keep the film's heart pumping, while Baz Luhrmann's signature filmic stylings manoeuvre its jewel-encrusted body. A familiar (and well-told) story brought to a 2022 audience with enough appeal to please old fans and the new generation alike.
(Jesse Chaffey, Scenestr.com.au)

Like Parker, Luhrmann is also a showman. He uses loads of razzle-dazzle to tell — and sell — this tale, a frenetic, whiplash, time-jumping, hyper-stylish fantasia that depicts Elvis’ career as it builds to a crescendo — then progressively consumes him. A childhood sequence unfolds in the pastel panels of a comic book; a photo of Presley on the front pages of the newspaper becomes animated and speaks; a ride on a Ferris wheel transforms into a spinning vinyl record, a visual bridge connecting Parker’s dubious carnival-con background to Presley’s skyrocketing career.
(Neil Pond, Parade.com)

Most will go into ELVIS expecting a movie that is full of glitz and glam but lacks substance, in reality though nothing is further than the truth. Luhrmann surprisingly digs deep into the live of Elvis Presley and touches on some of the darker moments and events that happened throughout his career. Topics such as racist politicians and law enforcement officers targeting Elvis during the early days of his career are explored in great depth and ground the film, it is a rarity to see Luhrmann tackle serious subjects like this in his films but he shows here that he is more than capable of it.
(Dave Griffiths, Heavy Cinema)

How you feel about Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis will depend largely on how you feel about Baz Luhrmann’s signature brash, glitter-bomb maximalism. Just the hyper-caffeinated establishing section alone — even before Austin Butler’s locomotive hips start doing their herky-jerky thing when Elvis Presley takes to the stage to perform “Heartbreak Hotel” in a rockabilly-chic pink suit — leaves you dizzy with its frenetic blast of scorching colour, split screen, retro graphics and more edits per scene than a human eye can count. Add in the stratified, ear-bursting sound design and this is Baz times a bazillion.
(David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter)

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a fizzy, delirious, impishly energised, compulsively watchable 2-hour-and-39-minute fever dream — a spangly pinwheel of a movie that converts the Elvis saga we all carry around in our heads into a lavishly staged biopic-as-pop-opera.
(Owen Gleiberman, Variety)

Electrifying Elvis delivers the icon like never before - As fun as Elvis often is, it scores some remarkably sharp points, particularly regarding Presley's unfaked love of Black musicians, and the appropriations that fueled his crossover success. Of the many biopics to enshrine the King (and Elvis eclipses them all), none has featured a triple split-screen montage charting the performance of a single song back to its blues-shack roots. (Even the serious Presley documentaries don't cement the point as clearly as Luhrmann does.) "Too many people are making too much money to put you in jail," a shrewd B.B. King (Waves' Kelvin Harrison Jr.) tells Presley at one of his low points; the line is scalding.
(Joshua Rothkopf, Entertainment Weekly)

SEND EIN YOUR THOUGHTS - or comment on this Review

Spotlight by Nigel Patterson / Piers Beagley.
-Copyright EIN July 9, 2022
EIN Website content © Copyright the Elvis Information Network.