The reviews are in for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, with critics voicing their thoughts on the first cinematic biopic of the legendary rock icon. Charting the life and career of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) from his early years to his international status as the "King of Rock and Roll", the film will also explore Presley's problematic relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). Featuring an ensemble cast that also boasts Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Olivia DeJonge, Luke Bracey, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Dacre Montgomery, the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is slated to release in the United States on June 24.
Directed, co-produced, and co-written by Luhrmann, the biopic marks the Australian filmmaker's first movie in nine years following his 2013 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic drama The Great Gatsby. However, the director had been in talks to direct an Elvis Presley movie as far back as 2014, although there was no more development on the biopic until 2019, with production beginning in early 2020. Filming was then postponed in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Hanks and his wife Rita testing positive, and didn't recommence until September of that year. But once completed, Elvis gained praise from Presley's relatives, most notably from his daughter, granddaughter, and ex-wife.
Now, the first reviews for Luhrmann's biopic are rolling in thanks to those who were able to catch the Elvis' Cannes premiere. While most of the criticism is directed at the film's reluctance to explore Presley's life in more depth as well as its breakneck pace, the movie has been praised for Luhrmann's spectacular visual style and for Butler's convincing portrayal as the "King of Rock and Roll". Check-out extracts from some of the first reviews below:
Owen Gleiberman, Variety:
Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” is a fizzy, delirious, impishly energized, 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. Luhrmann, who made that masterpiece of romantically downbeat razzle-dazzle “Moulin Rouge!” (and in 20 years has never come close to matching it), isn’t interested in directing a conventional biography of Elvis. And who would want him to? Luhrmann shoots the works, leaping from high point to high point, trimming away anything too prosaic (Elvis’s entire decade of churning out bland Hollywood musicals flashes by in an eye-blink). He taps into the Elvis of our reveries, searing us with the king’s showbiz heat and spinning his music — and how it was rooted in the genius of Black musical forms — like a mix-master across time.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire:
Luhrmann’s sensory overload has resulted in some of the most swooningly electric moments in modern cinema, from the fish tank sequence in “Romeo + Juliet” to the elephant medley in “Moulin Rouge!” and that fantastic party sequence in “The Great Gatsby,” but the hyper-romantic energy of those films helped braid the present into the past in a way that made them both feel more alive. “Elvis” discovers no such purpose. It finds so little reason for Presley’s life to be the stuff of a Baz Luhrmann movie that the equation ultimately inverts itself, leaving us with an Elvis Presley movie about Baz Luhrmann. They both deserve better.
Jim Vejvoda, IGN:
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a dizzying and at times even overwhelming chronicle of the rock icon. Austin Butler is stellar as Elvis, giving it his absolute all in every scene; truly, a star is born here. Tom Hanks cleverly plays against type as the manipulative and greedy Colonel Parker, a huckster who lucked into being the manager of what he saw as the greatest carnival freak show ever. While the supporting cast isn’t given as many dimensions as they could have been in say, a TV miniseries, Luhrmann tells Presley's story on a grand scale suited only for the big screen, delivering an epic yet intimate maelstrom of emotions, music, ideas, and eye candy. The film’s breathless pacing may befit the fevered lifestyle of a rock star, but it can also rush through necessary moments of dramatic reflection. Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a wild ride clearly made with a big hunk o' love for its subject, and that zeal for capturing Presley’s humanity, both by its director and its star, outweighs the film’s excesses and shortcomings in the end.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian:
It’s not a movie so much as 159-minute trailer for a film called Elvis – a relentless, frantically flashy montage, epic and yet negligible at the same time, with no variation of pace. At the end of it all, you might find yourself pondering the eternal questions: what does Luhrmann think of Elvis’s music? Does he, for example, prefer some Elvis songs to others? Has he listened to any of Elvis’s songs all the way through? Or does he shut down Spotify after 20 seconds once he reckons he’s got the gist? These issues arise because of the weirdly incurious approach here to Presley’s music and his life, featuring a competent but not especially inspired performance from Austin Butler as the pelvis-swivelling, American-youth-deranging King himself.
Joshua Rothkopf, EW:
For a filmmaker sometimes criticized for skimming the surface, Luhrmann uses the material to go as deep as he does wide. Sometimes Elvis feels like a lost Oliver Stone film from his daring 1990s heyday: a big-canvas exploration of debauched American appetites. Fittingly, the Las Vegas years slacken a bit, televisions getting bulleted and pills chased. Still, Luhrmann makes room for Nixonian paranoia, especially in one hushed conversation with estranged wife Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge). "I never made a classic film I could be proud of," Elvis, a James Dean fan, tells her. Fans of Blue Hawaii will wince, but something equally rare has come to pass — a portrait of a serious man trapped in an unserious life.
Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent:
While you won’t find all that much truth in Baz Luhrmann’s cradle-to-grave dramatisation of his life, the Australian filmmaker has delivered something far more compelling: an American fairytale.
David Rooney, THR:
If the writing too seldom measures up to the astonishing visual impact, the affinity the director feels for his showman subject is both contagious and exhausting. Luhrmann’s taste for poperatic spectacle is evident all the way, resulting in a movie that exults in moments of high melodrama as much as in theatrical artifice and vigorously entertaining performance. As for the big question of whether Butler could pull off impersonating one of the most indelible icons in American pop-culture history, the answer is an unqualified yes. His stage moves are sexy and hypnotic, his melancholy mama’s-boy lost quality is swoon-worthy and he captures the tragic paradox of a phenomenal success story who clings tenaciously to the American Dream even as it keeps crumbling in his hands.
For Luhrmann, these are familiar reviews that evoke critical opinions of his previous works, such as Moulin Rouge!, Australia, and The Great Gatsby. These films also received praise for their distinctive style and creativity whilst earning criticism for having it come at the expense of the story. However, these assessments have often been at odds with wider public opinion as Luhrmann remains an extremely popular filmmaker with audiences, his unique style and typically romantic themes having established him as a profitable director and auteur. That being said, Elvis' runtime is noticeably longer than most of his other films, which may well test audience enthusiasm when compared to films like Romeo + Juliet and Strictly Ballroom.
With Elvis currently receiving divided reviews, it still seems that this is Luhrmann's most critically successful film since Moulin Rouge!. As such, it seems likely that the rock and roll biopic will also do well financially when it is released in cinemas worldwide next month. However, given that the director seems to have his own devoted fanbase, and that Luhrmann's unique visual style has proved divisive among audiences, it may be hard to tell how much influence this critical reception will ultimately have on Elvis's overall performance.
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