‘There’s been a lot written and a lot said, but never from my side of the story’
EPiC marks director Baz Luhrmann’s second foray into the life of The King of Rock and Roll, following on from his 2022 biopic Elvis, which starred Austin Butler in the title role (a role and an accent that he can’t seem to shake out of even four years on – he’s a committed actor). This time, however, the Aussie auteur has cracked open the Warner Bros. vault and delved deep into their many hours of never-before-seen footage to resurrect Elvis himself for another picture, tackling the story from a real-life perspective rather than a fictionalised one, though anything Elvis-related always seems to have a mythic sense to it.
Here, in a movie that’s half-documentary, half-concert film, Luhrmann hopes to bring us right into the front row for one performance among the hundreds from his famous Vegas years, between 1969 and ‘77.
The film has launched with a focus on the IMAX format. Trailers seem to be pushing premium presentations further and further these days, especially IMAX (probably, I’d wager, in a bid to build prestige for these new releases and, as always, make a little more money) but EPiC really does feel as though Luhrmann built it from the ground up with a huge screen and top-notch sound system in mind rather than retroactively picking up a finished film and sticking it in a grander format. He’s always had a reputation for bold, in your face storytelling – that sense of style and energy is at the core of all of his movies – so his work feels well and truly at home on an IMAX screen, the size of which just consumes every inch of your view.
I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Luhrmann’s past repertoire – I adore his exuberant 90s take on Romeo and Juliet, which just feels like being catapulted into this fever pitch mixing pot of obscene wealth and heated rivalries. While I wasn’t quite as taken with The Great Gatsby, I loved Elvis (despite, crucially, never really taking an interest in Elvis outside of tapping my feet along to his tunes) and he clearly sees himself (like his subject) as a pure entertainer.
EPiC starts with a direct address from Elvis himself, taken from an archival interview, in which he says quite clearly “When people have paid to come out and see you perform, you gotta put on a show.” That’s perhaps the most transparent mission statement a director could offer at the start of a film like this – we are here to be entertained and he wants to blow us away. More to the point, we as the audience want to be blown away, and as a fan of his work, he seemed like the perfect fit for the task.
I really struggled to find something I could follow along through this 100-minute experience, in a way that had me properly gutted having gone in wanting a blast. The film starts with your typical whistle-stop tour through Elvis’ history, briefly catching us up to speed in a customary way.
We all kind of know these beats, but in telling the story, you have to acknowledge them somehow rather than just take them as a given. Peter Jackson’s Get Back project caught us up on Beatlemania in a similar fashion to tee up the band’s later years. It’s important to find a place for the story of your documentary within the greater life of the subject, and we soon find ourselves accompanying Elvis as he returns to the stage, tired of playing into the persona Hollywood had pigeon-holed him into.
Luhrmann, as usual, moves things along at the speed of sound, flitting from rehearsals with Elvis and his band to backstage jitters and then up onto the stage with him, that same interview used throughout to allow the King to narrate his own story. He places special importance on the energy of each performance – no matter how many times he’s done this same gig before, he has to sell it to the audience as though this is his very first show.
There’s an interesting idea at play in flashing back and forth from the “present day” (the concert) all the way back to each song’s conception, with black and white TV footage of a younger Elvis first breaking onto the scene, but in practice, it feels scatterbrained, jerking wildly in one direction before moving back to the concert itself.
That criticism goes double for any of the film’s interludes between songs (of which there are many). As each song concludes, we’re sent back down the archival rabbit hole on a magical mystery tour that vaguely alludes to the greater legend of Elvis that Luhrmann explored in his previous film. While Elvis wove its yarn with confidence and energy, it always managed to feel level-headed. Luhrmann always felt like he had a handle on the material and the story he was trying to tell, offering insight into Elvis’ life both offstage and on, quarrelling with Tom Hanks’ overbearing Colonel Parker until things reached their breaking point.
EPiC, however, feels markedly muddled in its delivery, stuck somewhere between an outright concert piece and a narrative documentary, bringing the momentum of the music to a halt for short, shallow dives into other aspects of Elvis’ story. Whether it’s a few minutes spent on the Colonel with the villainous strings of Devil in Disguise or a frustratingly brief nod to the loss of his mother with I Miss You, these moments feel like under-developed gestures when they should carry weight.
Given how hollow those moments feel, you just have to wonder why Luhrmann felt the need to include them at all when the focus ought to be on the night of this performance. I would have welcomed either a well-crafted story with a few really tangible narrative through-lines to follow along complemented by the on-stage footage or indeed just the on-stage footage in its unfettered entirety to allow us to really just sit back and indulge in the treat that is Elvis performing live.
It’s a fantastic performance from a true showman – there’s some lovely snippets from him in the final act assuring an interviewer that he does indeed enjoy himself on stage and that enjoyment is clear to see in the silliness and energy that he brings in the footage here – but in trying to incorporate so much else of his off-stage life into the film (most of which we’re already familiar with Luhrmann’s take on from having seen Elvis), the film’s extrinsic conversations overshadowed the simplicity of just enjoying seeing Elvis live.
That’s the core premise at play here – we’re in our seats in the IMAX to watch an Elvis concert – but I consistently felt taken out of the room and the arena for a barrage of archival, glitzy goodies. There are nice moments in amongst the rest – I liked seeing the genuine joy from both parties at play in his interactions with fans – but at a certain point in the deluge of information, I started to feel, for the first time, able to understand the criticisms of Luhrmann’s bombastic other works. In opening a deep archive of previously hidden footage, this film lends itself to comparisons with Get Back, and while I certainly had problems with the incredibly indulgent runtime of Jackson’s Beatles retrospective, it was commendable for just letting the material speak for itself and allowing us that critical insight into these musicians.
EPiC is at its best when Luhrmann as the director takes a step back and lets Elvis himself take the mic. They called the man King for a reason – he knew how to put on a show, and his energy and enthusiasm here is infectious, even as someone who’s never felt that kind of religious fervour about his work that so many people do.
It’s clear that Luhrmann has that passion for him, and the project feels incredibly well-intentioned, complete with a nice post-script from a surprising star, but whereas Elvis won me over completely from a place of mild interest, this felt like a disappointing and insubstantial second look at the man, the myth and the legend.
EPiC is in cinemas now.
BBFC: Rated 12A for mild bad language, sex references, drug references.
