Myranda Houghton

I'm not an Elvis fan, but I grew up with a mother who was a giant fan so I had consumed a lot of his media/content throughout my life and I have to say, Austin Butler's performance was magnificent. To me, someone who was born decades after his death so never got to see Elvis in real time, Austin embodied what I had seen in movies and videos. The movie itself was good, I won't say it was great because the Baz Luhrmann touch on the editing (while entertaining) could be a bit much at times and, because I wouldn't consider myself a fan, I found myself really feeling the runtime since I had no invested interest in the moments of the movie. But, Austin's performance was the saving grace that kept my attention the whole time. Really, his performance was incredible... i felt like I was watching Elvis because he captured so much of his essence and got even the smallest mannerisms down that fans will associate with Elvis. I was a little worried about how the intertwining of modern renditions of songs would mesh well in a film taking place between the 50s and the 70s, but I was pleasantly surprised at how they did it. And I know it'll be a nice touch for young people to grasp onto in the movie to keep their interest. As many others have pointed out, it is definitely a watered down telling of his life, as it focuses primarily on his relationship with the Colonel, but I can't blame them cuz that would have made the movie 5 hours long. I also really appreciated them making a point to directly show the black artists that Elvis was inspired by. They showed the direct connection between the black community and himself so there's no doubt where he got his inspiration from. Overall it was a really unique telling of such a cultural icon and while Baz's style might be a little out there, I will commend it for keeping my attention more than it might have otherwise. But truly, the shining star of this movie is no one other than Austin in my opinion. He did a fantastic job and I think he deserves all the praise. If you plan on seeing this film, be prepared for a very stylized telling of Elvis's story, but a very authentic portrayal by Austin. He truly was phenomenal.

I really wanted to like this because of Maya Hawke and Andrew Garfield, especially Andrew Garfield because he is one of my favorite actors, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked. It definitely is an interesting take on social media and the world that internet stars live in as well as interesting commentary on the way social media consumes people's lives, but beyond that I found the movie fairly boring. All the acting performances were pretty good, especially Garfield's, but other than that I found myself not really engaging with the actual plot. The beginning seemed interesting, but as the movie progressed I realized it wasn't going where I wanted it to go and the story just lacked that deeper layer for me. It was too surface level. It's about a guy who screws over a couple people in order to gain internet fame, nothing more to it. They could've told a much deeper and fleshed out story about what internet fame can do to a person and how fake that world can be and the consequences that come with that, but instead it remained fairly shallow. It was definitely an interesting first watch, but it's not something I would watch again.