LONDON — Baz Luhrmann turns unearthed Elvis Presley footage into a vibrant tribute. EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert pulls from 59 hours of previously unseen reels discovered in Kansas City’s MGM salt mine archives during pre-production on his 2022 biopic. Fans demanded the material’s release after it got cut. Luhrmann’s team synced silent visuals to existing audio tracks. They even layered in a 45-minute unheard interview where Presley narrates his own story.

The result mixes documentary elements with live performance footage. Rehearsal glimpses add intimacy, all voiced over by Elvis. Luhrmann calls it a ‘tone poem,’ skipping expert interviews for raw immersion. Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production restored the clips with sharp, hyper-real colors, akin to their work on the Beatles’ Get Back.

For its first half, the 96-minute runtime grips viewers. Archival snippets trace Presley’s 1950s breakout. Clips then plunge into his 1960s Hollywood slump—mediocre films like 1968’s Love A Little, Live A Little, complete with a man in a cheap dog suit. The sequence disorients, hinting at Elvis’s frustration without spelling it out.

Presley shines brightest on stage. He vamps through ‘Burning Love.’ A haunting ‘In The Ghetto’ mesmerizes. He throws shapes, goofs with bandmates. No one matches the 20th century’s greatest showman. Eyes stay glued to the screen.

Trouble brews when Luhrmann tackles thornier ground. Elvis’s 1973 divorce from Priscilla Presley pairs with his croon of ‘You Were Always On My Mind.’ His tie to manager Colonel Tom Parker gets ‘(You’re The) Devil in Disguise.’ These links feel pat. Author Peter Guralnick needed 600 pages in his 2025 book The Colonel And The King to unpack Parker’s role beyond villainy.

Luhrmann thrives on surface dazzle. His hits like The Great Gatsby and Elvis revel in flash. Documentary demands more excavation. EPiC summons Presley’s iconoclasm without full depth. Still, the King’s energy leaps off the screen. Thank you, thank you very much.