Elvis

Baz Luhrmann’s kinetic style frequently suits Elvis, especially when the talented Mr. Presley (Austin Butler, in a star-making turn) performs such pivotal shows as the '68 Comeback Special, but the director’s maximalist approach just as frequently bogs down the proceedings.

The undercutting is led by a fat-suited Tom Hanks, whose Col. Tom Parker appears to be cosplaying as Danny Devito's Penguin but with Goldmember's accent. Far more compelling while telling Elvis' story from his 1997 Las Vegas deathbed and wandering the floor of an empty casino in a morphine-induced fever dream, The Colonel engages in repetitive business conniving with his client, distancing the film from Luhrmann’s creative, unpredictable wheelhouse.

Anyone can shoot the ordinary, and in many of Col. Tom's scenes, it feels like someone else was indeed calling the shots. When Butler is allowed to go all out, however, the filmmaking matches him with glitzy splendor, but the surrounding excess suggests that this Elvis probably should have left the building 30 minutes earlier.

Grade: B-minus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, the Fine Arts Theatre, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Warner Bros.)