★★★☆☆

You’ve got to admire Baz Luhrmann’s chutzpah. With this epic, sporadically entertaining yet equally misjudged feature the director has, at least, opted to not play it remotely safe. Framing Elvis’ rise and fall through the recollections of his diabolical manager (a bizarrely cast Tom Hanks) gives this biopic a good versus evil feel. It’s an unexpected approach that nevertheless ignores the complex character of the icon himself.

Austin Butler (Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood) makes an appropriately smouldering Presley and he sizzles in the musical sequences, which are brought to life sensationally as Luhrmann fully captures the frenzy of hormone-fuelled excitement which greeted the star. And that is actually the actor singing; he underwent coaching for a year before filming commenced and emulates Elvis’ distinct vocal style uncannily.

But the execution of Elvis’ story is less impressive, with the looming figure of Hanks’ shady Dutchman Colonel Tom Parker scuppering it at nearly every turn. Looking a little like Orson Welles in Touch Of Evil and casting off his nice-guy persona in favour of a cartoonish brand of villainy, Hanks finds himself in a fight with a Dutch accent. We see how Parker swoops in to seize control of the fledgling star, helping to raise him up but also preventing him from travelling abroad and doing him a huge disservice when he shackles his protégé to a Vegas residency. Perhaps a peak into Elvis' personal life could have redeemed the narrative, but the sweet love story between him and Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) barely skims the surface, as does the sanitised depiction of Elvis’ battle with addiction. 

Luhrmann knows how to put on a show, energetically directing a montage-heavy, often very good-looking film that never stays anywhere long enough to tell us much, and that certainly isn’t interested in anything controversial regarding the King himself. The director paints his appropriation of Black music as affectionate and seems content to settle for a depiction of the star as a big-hearted but flawed enigma. Clips of the real Elvis showcase a goofier side, which the film sadly gives no suggestion of; and, despite covering much of the singer’s life, it oddly avoids his final few years and thus wraps things up rather abruptly. That it dazzles intermittently is of some consolation, but the lingering impression is of an opportunity missed.

Elvis is in cinemas from Friday 24 June.