It's all very stylized and flashy and modern, self-consciously hip in a way that's clearly been designed to speak to generations for whom Elvis Presley may not be the King of Rock 'n' Roll so much as the guy on the soundtrack to "Lilo & Stitch."

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

Elvis is hyperbolic, one-dimensional and ludicrous – but as high-excess cinematic myth-making, it’s a blast.

| Jul 7, 2022

Luhrmann's fast-cutting super-montage style overpowers the subject matter, and the result is an impressionistic, jumbled highlight reel of Presley’s many accomplishments, despite vivid recreations by actor Austin Butler as The King.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 5, 2022

Baz Luhrmann turns the life of Elvis Aaron Presley into a three-ring circus with more sensation than sense in Elvis. But it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 1, 2022

Flashes of color, lightning cuts, and the camera spins and needle drops are at times overwhelming, but it’s an overall enjoyable experience that washes over you in waves of excitement.

| Jul 1, 2022

Baz Luhrmann photobombs this Elvis portrait with over-extravagant filmmaking that dwarfs the iconic rock and roller. And that ain’t easy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 30, 2022

The most anachronistic element of Elvis is its cloying need to assure us that its hero was a good person, as if trying to preemptively counter some imagined onslaught of TikToks about why Elvis Presley is problematic.

| Jun 28, 2022

Of the actors who have previously tried to bottle Elvis’s lightning-like magic, none has come close to the physical, emotional, electrical energy that throbs through Austin Butler’s titular performance here.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 27, 2022

It’s an epic collage of images and sensations, but it is not a movie. Yet despite a surfeit of annoying flaws, I must add that it is also an occasional whale of an extravaganza.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 27, 2022

Elvis is propelled forward — almost maniacally so — by Presley’s music... The relentless music makes the whole thing feel like a montage... But it’s infectious.

| Jun 27, 2022

A wildly over-the-top and extremely entertaining biopic of Elvis Presley.

| Jun 25, 2022

Elvis, in the epic tradition of all of Luhrmann’s work, is a brash, overwhelming experience... It’s too much. Yet if it were any less excessive, it wouldn’t be as doggedly effective as it often is.

| Jun 24, 2022

Through Luhrmann’s lens, Elvis transforms from someone striking and fresh to a relic clinging for relevancy in a changing world. Luhrmann presents the familiar narrative with enough verve to make it feel new.

| Jun 24, 2022

Baz Luhrmann brilliantly floods our senses with arresting sights and sounds.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 24, 2022

It’s clear Luhrmann is more interested in mythmaking, era-hopping, and genre-melding than he is in trying to dig all that deeply into the complex cultural, racial, and political realities of Presley’s life.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 24, 2022

I liked it, though my corneas did feel a little crunchy afterward.

| Jun 24, 2022

Swept up in the glint of the leather and the bejeweled jumpsuits, Luhrmann overlooks the messy human who hid underneath. And so, he misses out on the heart that could have made his film truly spectacular.

| Jun 24, 2022

Every surface is cleanly wiped. Every fabric seems fresh out of the box. There is no journey to Vegas. We are essentially there from the opening scene.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 24, 2022

Baz Luhrmann’s bejeweled battering ram of a biopic is all over the place, which can be distracting, but the grit and grace of Austin Butler’s performance as The King is a thing of beauty. A star is born right here.

| Jun 24, 2022

Presleyologists will learn nothing here, and purists will find plenty against which to rail. Less knowing viewers, however, may well be sucked in by Luhrmann’s lively telling of the tale.

| Jun 24, 2022