FIRST REVIEW

GRAVE news for wedding singers and Las Vegas variety acts – it’s time for you to hang up those sparkly jumpsuits.

Next month, there will only be one Elvis impersonator worth watching.

Hollywood was all shook up when Austin Butler snagged the role, beating the likes of Harry Styles and Ansel Elgort. But the newcomer repays director Baz Luhrmann’s faith with a star-is-born performance.

Butler, 30, nails the moves, mannerismsand soulful voice and truly channels The

Kings’ charisma.

When girls scream in the electrifying musical sequences, you wonder how much acting was required. Yet, the film is as much about his corrupt manager Colonel Tom Parker as it is Elvis. Parker (Tom Hanks, below) talks us through Elvis’s formative years in Mississippi, where he sees Big Boy Crudup playing That’s Alright Mama and wiggles his hips when taken by the Lord’s spirit in church.

Parker knows little about music but when he sees Elvis perform you can imagine dollar signs in his eyes.

He takes charge of young Presley’s career, but a furore erupts over his ungodly gyrations and the colonel fears his own dark past could be exposed during a brush with the authorities.

His bid to tame rebellious Elvis leads to conflict but as Elvis needs to provide for an extended family plus wife Priscilla (Olivia Dejonge) and daughter Lisa-marie, Parker has the upper hand.

The star ends up hooked on drugs and trapped in a contract with a Vegas casino.

It’s a sad ending to a film filled with triumphant moments, such as a behind-the-scenes look at his 1968 TV special and a concert where Elvis baits the police with If You’re

Looking For Trouble. We don’t really get under his skin but this is a foottapping, spine-tingling testament to a musical pioneer.