Elvis New Movie

DefaultM

My dad is a massive elvis fan, room dedicated to him and everything. He's not even mentioned this film and he's got a Cineworld unlimited card. I'm gonna ask...

DefaultM

He thought he would hate it but it was okay, he just kept getting annoyed by all the bits they got wrong. I won't be asking what those bits were...

TheBigDipper

Went to see it a few days ago. Saw the trailer a couple of times recently before other films, but hadn't read any reviews. My wife loved it. I thought it was OK but found it hard to care about the characters. Tom Hanks is very good. The early performance scenes are pretty credible. TBH, I preferred the original performances in the film that the white boy was inspired by (or stole, even?) but it's a decent film and you come away feeling that Elvis was the real deal before everything else got in the way. 

And I'm not an Elvis fan nor an Elvis hater - he's just always been there, IYKWIM. 

HAL9000

Saw it this afternoon in Marlborough. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe slightly too long but no complaints other than that. I’m not particularly an Elvis fan but I do like Lurrmann’s sense of spectacle. The scene where the blues music at the juke joint is gradually merged with the music at the gospel meeting worked particularly welll IMHO. 

ICBM

Saw it yesterday at a small local cinema. Brilliant.

OK, it's Baz Luhrmann, so if you don't like his visual style it's probably not for you - although it's a bit less extreme than some of his others - but it really is very well done. As HAL said, in particular the crossfades are clever and really bring it alive as you see how Elvis was inspired by blues and gospel.

Austin Butler is very good - not perfectly convincing, and there are moments where he seems almost more like a young John Travolta than Elvis - but he plays the part very well. Tom Hanks is great - heavily made up, and creepily likeable as well as repellent as the devious 'Colonel'. I'm not certain it's his *best* performance, but it must be one of them.

For us guitar nerds it's - very unusually - really well-researched too, as far as I could tell. All the right gear, no jarring anachronisms.

I didn't feel it was at all too long either - if anything it flew by.

Go and see it if you have any interest at all in him.

Rabs

I watched it too...

It took me a while to get in to it and I found the editing and some of the music choices a bit odd.

For me it felt like a really long dream sequence, jumping from one point to another without much explanation for a lot of it.. My issue with that being that you never really get any detailed information at all ( I know its meant to be like that). So maybe for fans of Elvis who know his story it makes more sense. But for me it made it really hard to get in to the characters (im not really a big Elvis fan).

I also didnt really like the mixing with modern day music much. I find it off putting and takes you a bit out of the moment.

In saying all of that, I did watch the whole thing and mostly enjoyed it. It is just a bit oddly put together.

Also there were NO cheeseburgers in it at all   

benmurray85

ICBM said:

For us guitar nerds it's - very unusually - really well-researched too, as far as I could tell. All the right gear, no jarring anachronisms.

There’s an interview on YouTube with JD Simo (one of my guitar heroes) who seems to have done most, of not all, of the session work for the movie. It seems like they put a lot of work into the detail. 

I had seen that YT video before the film and actually was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more performance stuff in there from what JD had said. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

chris78

Watched it last night.
Thought the guy who played Elvis was excellent and the makeup on him superb. He didn't always look like Elvis, but he got the mannerisms and moves spot on.
Didn't wildly like Hanks. He played Tom Hanks.
The Estate thinks that they got the story pretty accurate so thats enough for me.

Overall, didn't love it, won't rush to watch again, but did enjoy it.

adamino

I watched it last night and its not really good.Its actually really really bad.

lustycourtier

adamino said:

I watched it last night and its not really good.Its actually really really bad.

What didnt you like? Im a massive fan and loved it, and my wife hates elvis, and loved it. 

SimonC

I didn’t hate it, but didn’t like it very much either. In terms of exploring Elvis relationship with the colonel, I  found it strangely superficial.
I recently read Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, so maybe I was wrongly expecting more depth.
 I found Hanks acting skills were hampered by the masses of prosthetics so he was forced into playing a caricature rather than a character.

jonnyburgo

I spotted cross headed screws on a Tele in one scene so that put me off the whole thing 1/10. 

Joking I've not seen it yet, will do though.

Tone71

Watched it last night, thought it was excellent.

Not a fan of the director after the shambles that was Romeo and Juliet, the only film that's ever made me shout at the telly and everyone else in the room and storm off, but that aside it's mostly brilliant.

Austin Butler does look, from the right angles, absolutely spot on but other times a bit Danny Zuko, Tom Hanks looks like a guy in a fat suit with an odd accent but as someone who remembers taking the paper up to my parents in bed in '77 and seeing the king is dead on the cover which led to numerous years of being an Elvis nut I really, really enjoyed it and will go again.

Highly recommend, go see it

Gassage

Just slung this on the film thread

Elvis

I was really looking forward to this and to understanding his impact. We often take Elvis for granted as he was simply so influential.

However, Baz Lurhman's 'house' style just ruined the feel and emotion of the film- too fantasyland for me and too stylised. 

Given the strength of the subject material, I didn't feel the emotional engagement of BoRap or Rocketman, and just felt that the timeline sequence was far too lumpy too. Things that annoyed me was the complete ignoring of DJ Fontana's and Scotty Moore's back story and influence and no real things about the songwriter deals nor Lieber/Stoller.

Nice parts- well I'm old enough to remember that live satellite show and how people queued up to watch it.

Really superficial, far too artistically 'all about Baz' and a little too long - an opportunity missed to really unpack a story.

6/10

AK99

^ Couldn't articulate it as well as Gassage, but yeah - I'd give it a 6 out of 10.
Like Elvis' own career in many ways - some great stuff at the start, but simply ran out of steam for me.