Darren McGovern

I believe the high ratings of this movie are due only to the popularity of Elvis. The film is awful. It’s like Elvis showing up in a Moulin Rouge advertisement. The pacing and story are shoehorned into a historical plot which doesn’t call for such selfish directorial flourishes and posing. In fact, the story telling is so bad, characters appear and disappear without warning or reason or identity. As if people will sit around and study this pointlessly bombastic train wreck later and figure it out. Elvis is hailed as savior of the black people and victim of his own loyalty. It really made me physically ill and I had to leave the theatre about 3/4 of the way in. The use of haunting reverb laden background music was insane and disturbing. I really have nothing good to say. Hanks was a bore as the evil manager who single-handedly destroyed Elvis, the brilliant but helpless messiah. Irritating.