Elvis wasn’t so much a pop star as a phenomenon: he’s one of the best-selling artists of all time and one of the most famous musicians of modern times. He’s so famous, in fact, that there have been seemingly countless biographies, biopics and documentaries about him, his origins and his stardom. But despite this, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis manages to breathe new life into the story to become one of the best Prime Video movies – largely down to a stunning performance by Austin Butler as the king of rock’n’roll.
Why Elvis will leave you all shook up
If the Elvis you know is the Elvis of Nudie suits, karate movies, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Elvis the movie is a great corrector. While of course the late Elvis was real, it sometimes overshadows how downright dangerous he felt when he first hit America’s TV screens. Early Elvis was hungry, vital and sexy, and that’s the Elvis that Austin Butler inhabits. As The Arizona Republic puts it, the movie has “clearly been designed to speak to generations for whom Elvis Presley may not be the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll so much as the guy on the soundtrack to Lilo & Stitch“.
“Elvis is hyperbolic, one-dimensional and ludicrous – but as high-excess cinematic myth-making, it’s a blast,” says music magazine Uncut, but it’s not to everybody’s taste: The AV Club noted that “Luhrmann’s fast-cutting super-montage style overpowers the subject matter, and the result is an impressionistic, jumbled highlight reel of Presley’s many accomplishments, despite vivid recreations by actor Austin Butler as The King.” But for others that was part of the movie’s appeal. “Flashes of color, lightning cuts, and the camera spins and needle drops are at times overwhelming,” said the Chicago Reader, “but it’s an overall enjoyable experience that washes over you in waves of excitement.”
There is one major problem if you’re a fan, however. As The Irish Independent points out, for a film about Elvis there isn’t very much of his music in the movie. “The film’s attitude to Presley’s music is perplexing – hardly a single song is played in full and those we do hear are thrown away in gimmicky overlays.” But the songs we do see are thrilling, says The Observer: “Of the actors who have previously tried to bottle Elvis’ lightning-like magic, none has come close to the physical, emotional, electrical energy that throbs through Austin Butler’s titular performance here.”
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