Kevin Smith Reviews Elvis Movie: "A Marvel of Cinema"

Though Kevin Smith routinely reviews new Marvel and DC movies, the man can also be depended upon to offer his thoughts on other summer blockbusters. In this latest Fatman Beyond LIVE podcast, Smith revealed his thoughts on Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie, which he revealed he saw with his mother, herself a long time Elvis fan when the King of Rock and Roll was performing. Smith praised the film's aesthetics but also the presentation for the film in the Screen X format, the theatrical exhibition that pushes the entire image across three walls instead of one screen. He called the film both "spellbinding," a "marvel," and offered a hilarious anecdote about star Austin Butler.

"My mom, three times, cried during the movie, and it was so f-cking weird because in the movie there's a scene where he f-ckin wiggles his pelvis for the first time and all the women are like "aaah!'," Smith said. "My mom was like crying at that scene because she was like 'That was before I was even with your father, I remember that.' She made it clear, she was like 'I never looked at his pants like that.'"

Smith continued, "The movie is wonderful, I don't know how you fit someone's giant life in two and a half hours, but Baz Luhrman did a great job doing it. Austin Butler was absolutely Elvis, just became the guy, even fat Elvis, they put him in the make-up. Really thin people in fat make-up, it just don't work, (but) they spent some money. This movie is so expensive, they must have spent hundred, two hundred million bucks, maybe easily two hundred million. Because they recreate 1950, every outfit, they do a crowd full of people, you got 400 people, every extra has their hair done and their wearing period clothing. Just so god awful expensive, but put to wonderful use because it really did recreate the era, a majesty, a marvel of cinema."

Finally, Smith concluded, "But watching my Mom cry during it was realizing she was like a total fangirl...At the end of the movie she was crying, and she was like 'oh my god that boy he was so wonderful,' she loved the movie. She goes, 'I wanna meet that boy, that beautiful boy that played Elvis,' and I was like 'you have met that boy ma, he was in Yoga Hosers, he played one of the satanic teens.' And my mother without missing a beat said, 'Oh, Well this movie will be way better for his career.'" 

Elvis debuts in theaters this Friday.