In Elvis, Baz Luhrmann's campy excesses overshadow The King's essence - The A.V. Club

Baz Luhrmann is one of those artists, and it should have made him the perfect director for Elvis, the life story of Elvis Presley, a singular artist in his own right.

Despite Parker’s repeated efforts (on screen and one presumes in real life) to tame his client, one thing that Luhrmann captures effectively is how Presley simultaneously kickstarted the country’s sexual awakening, and came to embody it, via the black music—the “race records”—from which the young man borrowed so liberally and lovingly.

If as an actor he exudes slightly more danger—at least by the standards of contemporary aesthetics—than the real Elvis, it feels like the right choice under a filmmaker incapable of subtlety.

Notwithstanding the just plain bad choice to tell the story of one of the most iconic artists from the viewpoint of his scoundrel of a manager, Hanks maintains a consistent veneer of menace and untrustworthiness, down to his cryptic descriptions of Presley as the singer’s cultural stature grows throughout the film.

Luhrmann, who co-wrote, produced, and directed the film, revisits some of his earlier tricks from The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge to give Presley contemporary relevance, weaving a musical tapestry out of the singer’s hits and music from contemporary artists.

But like everything else in the film, they’re mashed up to no meaningful effect, while he languishes too much effort by half recreating costumes, sets and locations from periods in his subject’s life

Luhrmann was clearly able to do so—for himself, anyway—in attempting to tell Presley’s story

But as a coda to a career that probably can’t be contained in a film by anybody, much less this particular filmmaker, Elvis sadly reiterates the through line of his legacy: it’s another example of artists exploiting Presley in pursuit of their own greatness instead of honoring his