‘Elvis’ doesn’t add much to the King’s life story, except Austin Butler
By Madeleine Aitken | September 27“Elvis” (2022) is, in a word, captivating. From his impoverished childhood in rural Mississippi where he discovered music, his adolescence in Memphis where he frequented Beale Street to his rise to stardom and subsequent crash and burn, “Elvis”takes us through the whole Elvis Presley story, but doesn’t add much to it. Baz Luhrmann, the famed director of “The Great Gatsby” (2013) and “Moulin Rouge!” (2001), takes a whopping two hours and 39 minutes to tell us what could have mostly been gleaned from a five-minute skim of Presley’s Wikipedia page. Luhrmann does add color here and there, and it’s still a highly enjoyable watch — mainly for Austin Butler's performance as Presley, an excellent soundtrack and fantastic period costumes — but ultimately, “Elvis”falls short in expanding on the star’s life.
