Wise men say only fools rush to make biopics.
The good news about "Elvis" — and there's not enough good news — is that "Moulin Rouge" writer/director Baz Luhrmann has not made a traditional biopic. His model seems to be Oliver Stone's "JFK," also a flashy, frenetic and not entirely factual movie about a man who became very famous in the middle of the 20th century. Like Stone, Luhrmann cuts the movie into non-chronological bits, with the camera swooshing all over the place, music blaring and each image — even newspaper photos — springing to noisy life.
Say this for "Elvis": It is never boring. But it also tells us virtually nothing about Presley. Luhrmann is so hell bent on hitting each highlight of Presley's music career (recording at Sun Records, TV appearances, controversy about suggestive dancing, Vegas residency, etc.) that "Elvis" feels more like a Wikipedia entry than a movie.
