Martin D. Goodkin

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Entertainment > Movies > "Elvis"--movie Theatre Review
 

"Elvis"--movie Theatre Review



There is something special about not expecting much from a movie only to be delightfully surprised and such was the case regarding "Elvis". I was never a fan of Elvis Presley though when I heard him I liked his singing of some songs but his 'moves' I thought were funny. I never saw him in concert except on his worldwide TV spectacular and, if I recall, I didn't see the whole thing. I, also, know that director Baz Luhrmann loves big gestures and with Elvis I knew he would probably go overboard.


Austin Butler does a great job as Elvis! He has the looks, the moves and though I read some of the songs were sung by Elvis I couldn't tell the difference where they were his voice and where it might have been Butler just as I couldn't tell if it was the real Elvis or Butler in the last few minutes of the movie.


Elvis was born a year before me and though I have lived twice as long as he did we both went through some major events in the USA including the assassinations of Jack and Robert Kennedy plus Martin Luther King. We both lived through the Korean and Vietnam wars, the sexual revolution and segregation attitudes. Our main difference was that he had Colonel Tom Parker played by Tom Hanks---more about him in a moment! The Colonel wasn't one nor was he a US citizen which caused a major change in the relationship between him and Elvis. He made Elvis one the highest paid actors in Hollywood, was responsible for getting him on and making a star of him on TV and followed with record breaking concerts plus made him a recording star with more million dollar selling of single records than any other male artist. I know most of what we are told about Elvis in the movie but very little about Parker who was a conman from the get go and took, at the least, 50% of all of Elvis's earnings.


Baz Luhrmann does, as expected, a spectacular job of directing the many musical various musical numbers plus others besides those of Elvis. The big problem seems to be the 4 screenwriters seemed to have many different ideas of how to approach the various stories in the screenplay and the editing by Jonathan Redmond, Matt Villa and Luhrmann not only mixing everything up but extending the movie to 2 hours and 39 minutes when it could have easily been cut but at least 30 minutes!


The big (no pun intended) to me was Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker! Hank recently came out saying that straight men should not play gay men in movies even though he won an Oscar doing just that. After seeing this I think he should also say that only fat men should play fat men in movies or, like many have, thin actors should eat and get fat instead of getting using latex, botex and whatever else to make his appearance very distracting in addition to having an accent that just doesn't fit who the character was. More is told about the man in the end credits than the screenplay does and those faults are strictly on the director's and actor's shoulders!


Though I make a 'big deal' of the problems in the last 2 paragraphs I strongly suggest seeing this and seeing it on a movie theatre screen if for no other reason than the performance by Austin Butler but there are other reasons to see it.


A note, for whatever it is worth, the theatre auditorium was more crowded than I have seen in awhile plus I am willing to bet most, if not all, of the audience were over 60!


posted on June 24, 2022 3:49 PM ()

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