I wasn’t here for Tom Hanks, the most overrated actor of all time starring as Elvis’ notorious bottom-feeding manager Colonel Tom Parker. But it’s a suitable gig for Hanks in that he can apply his superficial charm to the role. I wasn’t here for Elvis, either. I don’t like his music and my only experience of his movies is of turning them off if they ever ‘graced’ the TV back in the day.
A Baz Luhrmann movie, however, is always worth a bash and at least distinctive (auteur quality), and he achieves more than most directors in trying to realise a style and vision. Elvis (2022) is an easy watch, engrossing even, visually dazzling, a kaleidoscope of colour, and frenetically edited and paced.
Luhrmann has no issue using music decades out of the depicted period; it’s a method of keeping the subject matter contentious, connecting it with the present. Some folk moan about such things, but the lad can do what he wants. He has a fervid and fearless imagination that is rare in cinema.
The lad who plays the titular crooner is quite brilliant. Unfortunately, Hanks isn’t, his ‘performance’ mere prosthetics. The movie succeeds most when he isn’t on-screen, but he’s barely off it – being a nuisance, trying to hog the limelight like a subpar Dutch-accented version of Orson Welles in Touch of Evil (1958).
But it’s a very good movie and attains an affecting, plangent beauty by the end.
It’s just a shame that Tom Hanks features.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 