And the heavy prosthetics do him few favors, robbing him of his facial range-an underrated tool in his repertoire. In this case, you can hear his accent slipping back toward Hanks. Though a biopic veteran, Hanks has rarely been a transformative actor. He’s also a momma’s boy (thankfully Luhrmann doesn’t belabor the death of Elvis’ brother, a biographical fact lampooned by “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”). Presley loves the superhero Shazam, and dreams about reaching the Rock of Eternity, a stand-in for stardom in this case. King ( Kelvin Harrison Jr.) furthers the point. A performance of “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton ( Shonka Dukureh), and the emergence of a flashy B.B. They explain how Gospel and Blues equally enraptured him-a well-edited, both visually and sonically, sequence mixes the two genres through a sweaty performance of “That’s Alright Mama”-and they also show how much his time visiting on Beale Street informed his style and sound. In the early goings-on, Luhrmann and co-writers Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner meticulously build around Presley’s influences. It’s difficult to wholly explain why “Elvis” doesn’t work, especially because for long stretches it offers rushes of enthralling entertainment. Carrying a heap of affectations, Hanks plays Parker like the Mouse King in “ The Nutcracker.” For precisely the film’s first half hour, "Elvis" moves like a Christmas fairytale turned nightmare one fueled not by jealousy but the pernicious clutches of capitalism and racism, and the potent mixture they create. From the jump, Luhrmann’s aesthetic language takes hold: An IV-drip turns into the Las Vegas skyline in a hospital nightgown, Parker walks through a casino until he arrives at a roulette wheel.
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