Would you want a biopic about Elvis told from the perspective of “Colonel” Tom Parker? Probably not. Were you expecting it to be a 1950s “The Elvis Presley Story”-style film? Probably also negative. It seems to me that Elvis Presley is about the best-looking man who ever lived. Austin Butler, who portrays him here, is not. Neither can he move like Elvis, or project any sort of screen presence.
Director Baz Luhrmann, who started his career in blistering form with Strictly Ballroom (1992), sees Elvis more as a Bowie-like pop star who wears eyeliner and lipstick and always dresses in pink, which isn’t accurate. Elvis was undeniably a loud dresser, but had dark blonde hair before he started dyeing it black, which is perfectly obvious from early album covers. Distortions like these would surely be irritating to anyone with a basic familiarity with his biography.
Worse, the story is badly underdramatized, frequently deploys voice-over, and makes crude sociological points. If the internet has reduced your attention span to that of a gnat, however, this may be the movie for you. The crowded visual look and frenetic editing—which draw on close-ups, telephoto, zoom, dissolves, and match cuts, often all within a five-minute period—as well as overblown score, introduces a level of flamboyance that is quite un-called for, given the dazzling nature of the subject matter.
What is totally missing is restraint, or tonal contrast. I threw the towel in after forty minutes and used some of the time freed up to rewatch the start of Top Gun: Maverick, which looks like a work of genius in comparison to this piece of dreck.
FATAL VISIONS 