8 Most Overrated Films Of Summer 2016

5. Elvis & Nixon

Elvis & Nixon has the best hook a real-life event picture can want, with not one, but two highly lauded character actors taking on absolute icons; Kevin Spacey is Ricahrd Nixon, Michael Shannon Elvis Presley, and the film takes a look behind that oddly revered photo of the pair in the oval office. And much of the praise seemed to suggest it paid it off.

The problem is, in execution it’s nothing more than a glorified TV movie. Everything is so small scale, with limited sets and copious archive footage to show anything outside of them, that it feels like a facsimile, and it spends most of its time ambling through filler before the big meet. If this was one of those BBC specials then it’d be fine, but it doesn’t warrant a movie run-time (cut out Alex Pettyfer) or to be praised on the scale of one. Maybe watching it on Prime made it easier to pass.

It’s on a performance level where things are most lacklustre though. I’m not claiming either actor gives a bad turn, just that neither takes their icon through to completion. Spacey is a little too Frank Underwood as Nixon and even if he did look more like Trickie Dickie would be unlikely to rank as one of the best takes on the 37th President. Shannon gets more time and his Elvis is spot on, but the really interesting stuff - he laments at one moment how he can’t walk into a room without a fanfare - is brushed over in a couple of scenes, never getting to the heart of the man.