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Rating: 3.75 out of 5
The King of Rock and Roll, the one and only Elvis Presley. Elvis was a musical god amongst the mortals in this world. He is regarded as one of the 20th-century pioneers in music with those wiggling hips. His performances, which often had sexual moves to his style, set women wild. I’m telling you, it is all about wiggling those hips. His music and style crossed many barriers. Coming from Memphis, Tennessee, Elvis had the ability and skin color to bring the sound of Blacks to a wider audience. Managed by Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis went on to have a string of hits that would immortalize him forever. Along with his musical ventures, he would star in many films. Through all his fame and fortune, Elvis dies at 42. His Graceland estate has become an icon in the United States. Elvis is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has been an influential figure for many artists today.
When it was announced that an Elvis biography would be coming out, who wouldn’t want to go see it. Hey, you might even get to sing Jail House Rock. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner. The film was about Elvis and the control Colonel Tom Parker had over all of Elvis’ management, businesses, and life.
The film will leave you feeling two ways or maybe three. One is pure disappointment because it feels more like a film about manipulation and a major conman. The second feeling is you might shrug your shoulders after watching it and feel good about an Elvis movie being out in the world. The third feeling is not knowing what to feel or right in the middle. The film was in the middle for me. I was happy I saw a movie about Elvis from someone else’s perspective. However, I was highly disappointed because it seemed to skip over his famous songs. Where the freak was was Hound Dog, Jail House Rock, or even Viva Las Vegas.
The story revolves around the perspective of a con man, crook, and long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks). The film begins when the Colonel collapses in his office in Las Vegas. He is alone and reads a paper calling him a crook who took advantage of Elvis (Butler). Dude owned over 50% of Elvis’ income and worked him like a slave to support his own gambling addictions. The film goes into more detail on how the Colonel found Elvis and what he did.
The film does a back-and-forth style between the past and the Colonel walking through a Las Vegas casino in a hospital gown and IV drip. The first part plays out with Elvis’s early years in the dirt poorest areas of Mississippi. He is loved and supported by his mother, Gladys (Thomson) while spending his time in the black areas as his father was convicted of check fraud. When his parents up and moved to Memphis, he hung out with blacks because why not? They have better music and are just more excellent. The film skips to when Parker is a carnival huckster and, during a performance, witnesses Elvis perform. His wolf eyes become fascinated, and like a python, he slithers into Elvis’s life and wraps his coils around him.
The film shows the meteoric rise of Elvis, but it felt that everything revolved around the Colonel. Whenever Elvis did anything, the Colonel gave his advice and opinion. He conned his way into having his father sign a contract that should’ve been looked over by many lawyers. When the senator felt his music was corrupting white children, he tried to have Elvis change his look, only for him to end up in the Army. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Elvis wanted to become more political, but Parker, in turn, booked him to do a Christmas show. This is the whole problem with the film. We have more of the Colonel’s influences on Elvis than him being more of a section. It would’ve been nice to see what Bohemian Rhapsody tried to do with Queen. How did Elvis come up with the songs and the reactions to those songs? The assassination part was what I wanted to see more of because it had a reaction. Even the scene at the baseball stadium was more Elvis’ decisions than a crooked con man.
I get why the film went in this direction. I had no idea about Colonel Tom Parker and that he controlled so much of Elvis’ life, money, and thinking. Their relationship was completely one-sided. Thinking about it, it would’ve been far more interesting to start the film at the ending, where Elvis is on his deathbed, and he recounts everything, including how he thought of the good times and bad that ultimately led to his death.
I don’t want to take away from the style of this film. In a grand Elvis way, this film is definitely stylish. Certain scenes showed it off, with Elvis driving away somewhere or in a club. The slow motion moves he did as the sweat poured down from his head. Even when the Colonel spoke, and how he was portrayed in Las Vegas, it was all noticeable to the eye.
As far as the music goes, it was a letdown. I already stated what I wanted to hear. Now, the one great song was Doja Cat- Vegas. I liked how it sampled Hound Dog bit the Big Mama Thornton version. The film perfectly uses the song as Elvis strolls and wants to chill with the black people. It was a great use to show where Elvis got his influence but also his relationship with B.B. King.
I must give a shout-out to Austin Butler, whose performance as the King of Rock and Roll was phenomenal. Butler went hard in the paint in this role by capturing Elvis’s voice and showing the singer’s rise and struggles. Butler definitely made the most of this role, as he was nominated for an Academy Award.
I was hoping for more from this film, but it is a decent film to start learning about the life of the King of Rock and Roll. Butler did an excellent job and needs to be commended. The music was meh, but you can go watch old Elvis movies or songs.
