Elvis                       4 ½ stars

The new movie Elvis promised to be a grand extravaganza about the legend, the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley and in the hands of Baz Luhrmann, it is all that and so much more. Luhrmann has previously brought us visually stunning movies like Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby. He does it again in this biopic about Presley and his longtime manager Colonel Tom Parker, telling it in a very nonlinear style that highlights the triumphs and tragedy that this relationship brought to them both. Tom Hanks portrays Parker as the carnival promoter who is always looking for the next big act that will make him rich, and the man who would exercise power over Elvis through his entire career. The transformation of Hanks into this bloated master manipulator is amazing. Look for an Oscar for the Makeup category for this one. Austin Butler who has had several small movie roles takes on the challenging job of capturing the spirit and energy of Elvis’s performances and his inner conflicts and I would say he just about has it. The movie hits all the major points of Elvis’s life, his rise to stardom, the controversy over his hip wiggling performances, his stint in the army overseas, the Hollywood era, the Las Vegas Elvis and his addiction to barbiturates and alcohol that shortened his life. But it also effectively shows how he was influenced by the Black music that he was surrounded by growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi. His performances are interspersed with those of B. B. King, Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard and many others, so we see that without these Black artists there would have been no Elvis as we remember him. But the main story of the film is of the ties between Elvis and Parker as told through Parker’s eyes starting with his memories commanding that “The only thing that matters is that that man gets on that stage tonight.” This one deserves to be seen on the big screen. Next year look for Austin Butler as the notorious villain Feyd-Rautha in the sequel to Dune!