Two and a half hours after the movie Elvis (2022), a question that comes to our minds when we leave the hall is: “Where is Elvis Presley?” Claimed to tell the story and life of the “King of Stone”, the tape contains countless scenes of music, singing, dancing and sweating, but we never saw Elvis. Director Baz Luhrmann (“Moulin Rouge”, “The Great Gatsby”) interprets the king as an idea, a concept, a metaphor. Luhrmann seems to have used Presley (Austin Butler) as an excuse to show off his repetitive and unfashionable cinematic style. The Australian director’s previous films were certainly full of visual gimmicks, but the visual form continued to change the story. But to Elvis, the film is like a Wikipedia article decorated with flowers, music and dance. A film that does not progress, but jumps from one place to another without changing speed. First of all, the director chose an unconventional approach to telling the story of the legend. Although the film bears the name of Elvis, the real hero (narrator) is Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), Elvis ’business manager who manipulates Elvis and his career in fear and suspicion, the man who stole of the hands of little Elvis and would not leave him until death itself, He threw away his life cruelly and wickedly.

Prior to the screening of the film, it was doubtful that Luhrmann was the right person to deliver the king’s biography on the big screen, as he is not the traditional director of this type of film, but his style may have an advantage, he has imagination. and an inexhaustible kinetic flow, even if his films are not very good. Our suspicion was correct, Luhrmann gave us a pointless dose of glossy sheen, the same glitter he had sprinkled on his previous films. Covering Elvis throughout his life, the film focuses on two main stages: his beginning in 1955 until his departure for military service in Germany in 1960, and his glorious return in 1968 thanks to the TV show, its result, and its extensive show in Las Vegas. Vegas. .

Luhrmann’s charming style, he made the film’s long video about Elvis, a tape devoid of ideas and sayings. It doesn’t tell us how Elvis became king of rock and roll. Although the film highlights Elvis ’influence on American music and popular culture, it doesn’t bother to explain it. The film is only visually explosive, but it lacks the guts to go deep, showing Elvis as a marketing producer and not much mention of his musical genius. The film offers a lightweight and superb version of a character that clearly has more depth than we know or think. We don’t fully understand the pathological relationship between Elvis and his business manager, or even the Colonel’s identity. There’s no intimate moment in the film, as if we’re in front of a robotic legend that only excites women, and not in front of a man with flesh and blood. The film is an Elvis remix and a great audiovisual show with a decent budget, but once the lights in the theater go out, the noise and chaos ends and we feel deep emptiness and frustration. It’s hard to judge Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis because most of what we see throughout the film is his waist and the movement of his legs. Even Tom Hanks appears at his worst performance, with an excessive stomach, nose and game.

Baz Luhrmann made the film into a full-length music video.

The Elvis film is empty, indifferent to the king’s musical and cultural background, about his life and his influence on African American music, political events and the murders that took place in his life, unnoticed. As well as his friendship with me. with me. King skipped the film as if it were a normal thing. The film doesn’t bother to include a moment where the king is seen as not great or something new, or a myth that has changed popular culture. While the film shines on the outside, Elvis is empty on the inside. Luhrmann is committed to flooding us with his visual extravagance, and he wouldn’t be interested in this Elvis if he knew anything about him. He took advantage of the king and robbed him of everything. “Elvis” is not a movie, it is a fairy tale based on a true story about a poor child who once became famous, addicted to drugs, gained weight and died.

* Elvis in the hallways