From the start, it felt like the writers were going for the Salieri/Mozart angle from Amadeus with Colonel Parker being the former and Elvis being the latter. While Tom Hanks and Austin Butler kill it in their respective roles, it almost felt like Elvis was a side character in his own story, which maybe was the point? But then don’t call the movie Elvis, call it Snowman for the Colonel.
I did appreciate that the movie did not shy away from Elvis’s musical origin and influence. It almost felt like every time he started a song the movie had to show his musical sources to ensure that credit was given where credit was due, instead of focusing on Elvis as a person and his personal life. It’s almost like the flashbacks were footnotes in a research paper. Going into the movie, I understood Elvis’s life was a bit of a tragedy, but it’s almost like they didn’t want to show it or that he was suffering as it’s evident by the movie’s end that it was a battle he didn’t win.
Overall, while I found the patented Baz Luhrmann flair mostly engaging, there wasn’t enough extreme emotion, sadness or happiness, in me as a viewer to recommend this as a must see.
