Well, Elvis is certainly a Baz Luhrmann movie for all the hopped-up-on-energy-drinks, camera never stops, editing is King of Rock ‘n Roll kind of way. Luhrmann is a hyper-kinetic rabbity thing who never saw an editing deck he didn’t want to play with. And that’s a compliment… the dude has a style and the ability to tell a coherent story within that manic energy. I haven’t loved all his flicks, but I sure can respect his eye.

So Elvis is the biopic of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker. Elvis is played by relative nobody Austin Butler, who gets lost in the part. Parker is played by side-show carnival barker Tom Hanks in a part that reminds you constantly it’s Tom Hanks in a fat suit with an odd accent. The film tells – in a mania that bears a passing resemblance to temporal logic – the life of Elvis, his rise from a regional touring second act to his endless residency in Vegas.

And a lot of this works… even if it only passably resembles a human drama. So much of the film lives and breaths and wiggles and gyrates uncontrollably to the editing style and musical performances. There are moments for the actors to flex but also sequences that jump through time with wild abandon. And it is kind of interesting, kind of unique to watch the film just ooze this frenetic style.

But the flick is also over 2 1/2 hours and much of that runtime is stuck in the slog that is his residency in Vegas. It’s such a long setup and sequence that it dwarfs other events in the film. It gets so stretched out, I wondered if it was an intentional choice by Luhrmann to reflect how Elvis saw the long slog of the residency itself. If so, congrats… it was tedious.

Also, while Austin Butler does a very good job emulating Elvis as a younger man, he was betrayed by a lack of makeup or interest in making older Elvis actually feel like older Elvis. I kept seeing the young man under whatever passing effort they may (or may not) have tried to make him look bloated and unwell.

Plus we’re asked late in the game to feel for the plight of Priscilla Presley but they’d given her so little screen time, it felt like a late stage failed effort to throw the actress a bone.

But I still think there’s a good movie here, even if it is only the high energy, editing, and musical performances that drive it. It is a fun movie… until it’s not. But I think there’s still enough energy to get it over the finish line, though maybe it’d be easier to crash through at home rather than in the theater.

Score: 84