This magnificently produced biop of Elvis Presley contains an eerie, almost frightening portrayal of Presley by Kurt Russell, who literally seems to be inhabited by Elvis' spirit.
Physically, the movie is perfect in casting and location - you could see a freeze of any frame of this film and know it's about Elvis.
All that being said, die-hard Elvis fans will be left frustrated by the movies' gaping holes and unnecessary inaccuracies, the biggest of which is that the film stops in 1970 when Elvis lived until 1977. One can understand having to leave out parts and truncating others but this film went too far. There is nothing indicating Elvis' drug use, which began in the army; nothing that touches on the other women in his life while he was with Priscilla; he and Priscilla seem to be talking divorce in 1969; Elvis' Vegas opening is combined with his later touring - and the concert opens with "2001: A Space Odyssey" - no way; Elvis rants and raves about the movies he has to make, but it's 1968, he's supposed to be doing his comeback special and he's just about free of the films; and on and on. For dramatic effect, the circumstances of his mother's death were changed so that Elvis is present in the hospital room - yet the true description of Elvis learning of his mother's death in the Peter Guralnick book is much more harrowing.
Interestingly, however, the film does touch on Elvis' lethal enmeshment with his mother and the "twinless twin" syndrome, showing him often talking with Jesse. If they could draw on those elements, the producers certainly could have come up with a more accurate script.
