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Elvis

Elvis

2022

Baz Luhrmann

Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Richard Roxburgh ...

6.8

21,484

Drama The film explores the life and music of Elvis Presley (Butler), seen through the prism of his complicated relationship with his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks). The story delves into the complex dynamic between Presley and Parker spanning over 20 years, from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and loss of innocence in America. Central to that journey ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Owen Gleiberman Variety	"A fizzy, delirious, impishly energized, compulsively watchable 2-hour-and-39-minute fever dream"
		Pete Hammond Deadline	"Butler thrillingly succeeds, especially in the film’s first half, with an authentic rhythm that makes us wonder what greater heights Elvis could have climbed had he not succumbed to the dark side"
		David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"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"
		Tim Grierson Screendaily	"If Elvis suffers from a familiar Luhrmann weakness — style outpacing substance — the concert sequences effortlessly illuminate why Presley remains a revered musical figure"
		Jim Vejvoda IGN	"'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"
		Justin Chang Los Angeles Times	"[It] misses one of Luhrmann’s strengths as a filmmaker, which is his ability to suffuse clichés with sincerity, energy and feeling."
		David Ehrlich IndieWire	2Austin Butler gives a performance worthy of the King, but he's buried alive under a rhinestone rollercoaster of weak biopic tropes."
		Steve Pond The Wrap	"Baz Luhrmann dleefully distorts legend’s life in extravagant biopic (...) The Australian director’s film is part spirited homage to a titanic force in American music"
		Luke Hicks The Film Stage	"Name a department that isn't the Tom Hanks department and there's plenty of creative work worth praising. It's just utterly incoherent with the material —that's even tougher to get past"
		Phil de Semlyen Time Out	"Baz Luhrmann bounces back with a larger-than-life, energising and wildly entertaining anthem to the King (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"A relentless, frantically flashy montage, epic and yet negligible at the same time, with no variation of pace (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Charles Bramesco The Playlist	"There's enough in here to push the first hour or so into enjoyably bad territory (...) Any complexities Elvis may have had to go unexplored in favor of yet another ostentatious montage"
		Rafael Motamayor SlashFilm	"Austin Butler's stunning performance, lavish production design, and comic book-like editing make for a movie not unlike one of Elvis' own"
		Jason Gorber rogerebert.com	"'Elvis' is about a singular figure, but more than that it’s a celebration of a particular time of musical expression (...) Luhrmann's trademark mash-ups remind us that the barriers are arbitrary if not counterproductive"
		Louie Fecou Ready Steady Cut	"Worth watching for the lead role, but once you get over that, there is very little here that is either new or innovative and that is such a shame when there is so much talent available (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Olly Richards Empire	"This is everything you might expect of a Baz Luhrmann biopic. It's brash, loud, maximalist, and certainly never boring, but also keeps its subject at a distance, enthralled by his glamour not his soul (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"
		Joshua Rothkopf Entertainment Weekly	"A dazzling, splatter-paint evocation of the myth and the man (...) The movie achieves something tricky and valuable, mining shocking intimacy from sweeping cultural changes"
		Jordan Farley Total Film	"The toe-tapping beats of this full-throated biopic will be familiar in more ways than one but Baz Luhrmann, like Elvis, knows how to put on a great show (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"
		Brian Truitt USA Today	"An [excessive], overlong, narrative mess. However, with Butler's stellar portrayal, it's never dull, and more enjoyable than not (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"
		Richard Roeper Chicago Sun-Times	"Baz Luhrmann brilliantly floods our senses with arresting sights and sounds (...) A celebration of an artist who left a lasting and huge footprint on our culture (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"
		Ross Bonaime Collider	"[The] film is all style and very little substance (...) For all its flaws and questionable choices, Luhrmann's films are a spectacle that needs to be seen to be believed"

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