Elvis

Directed by Baz Luhrmann, Elvis details the title figure’s (Austin Butler) meteoric rise to fame alongside his shady, possibly criminal manager and promoter (Tom Hanks’ Tom Parker). Luhrmann, armed with a script written alongside Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner, delivers a perpetually (and pervasively) erratic endeavor that never becomes quite as engrossing or enthralling as the filmmaker has obviously intended, and it’s clear, certainly, that the picture does suffer from an arms-length first half that boasts many of the larger-than-life attributes one has come to expect from Luhrmann – with the relentlessly slick and glossy atmosphere ensuring that Elvis, for much of its opening hour, boasts the feel of an extended (and thoroughly exhausting) movie trailer. It’s clear, then, that the almost passable vibe is due predominantly to the top-notch efforts of Butler, who turns in an impressively magnetic performance, and his various costars, with, in particular, Hanks’ completely oddball (yet entirely compelling) work as the idiosyncratic Tom Parker ensuring that the film never quite becomes as dull as one might’ve feared. And although Luhrmann has punctuated the narrative with a handful of spellbinding sequences, including (and especially) the preparations for (and execution of) Elvis’ famed ’68 Comeback Special, Elvis builds towards an excessively melodramatic second half that does, thanks to an absurd 159 minute running time, drag to an often palpable extent – which ensures that the movie peters out long before arriving at its downbeat conclusion and ultimately cements its place as a disappointing misfire that squanders its host of appealing attributes.

*1/2 out of ****