All Eyez on Me

Starring: Demetrius Shipp Jr., Danai Gurira, Kat Graham, Hill Harper, Annie Ilonzeh, Lauren Cohan, Keith Robinson, Jamal Woolard, Dominic L. Santana, Cory Hardrict
Directed by: Benny Boom
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2017

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Follows the life of rapper Tupac Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr) as he rises to fame yet faces challenges from many angles.

Review:

Tim: I was looking forward to All Eyez on Me because I'm legitimately interested in the life of Tupac and his still-unsolved murder. It's a story that has always fascinated me. I admit I was a little less excited when I saw that the movie was 2 hours, 19 minutes long. That's obviously too long. The movie would have been helped by cutting 20 minutes. Even being overly long, the film isn't more than a decent effort. I certainly learned about Tupac, so one objective was met. However, the film isn't nearly entertaining enough.

The movie obviously sheds light on the life of Tupac. I never knew about his parentage and how that influenced his life. I didn't know about his stint in jail (or I probably did, but forgot). It was interesting to watch his career unfold before his untimely end. So, in some aspects, this movie deserves credit- it gives you a better sense of who Tupac was and what might have fueled him. I enjoyed that aspect of the film. The problem with all of this is the movie is never all that entertaining. It's fine, but it feels like the dozens and dozens of other musical biopics we've seen. The bar has been set by films like Straight Outta Compton- a movie that's informative, but incredibly entertaining as well. This film falls down in the entertainment section. Too many scenes drag out way too long. In telling Tupac's story, the film forgets that it needs to be a piece of entertainment as well. As a result, our interest fades. A great deal of the blame has to be placed on director Benny Boom- someone who has directed a lot of video shorts, but seemed very short on actual experience. The story of Tupac felt too big, too unwieldy for him. He fumbles the execution.

The cast isn't as good as it needed to be. It must have been difficult to cast Tupac. I'm not sure how I feel about Demetrius Shipp Jr. On the one hand, there were moments where he legitimately felt like Tupac. He kind of looks like him. His performance wasn't bad. The biggest complaint I had is that Shipp felt too soft. There wasn't really that edge, that killer instinct that it felt like Shakur had. Sure, he was intelligent, but he had this darkness to him as well. Part of the appeal felt like the contradiction between wisdom and darkness and those forces battled within Tupac. Shipp didn't really feel sharp enough, I didn't believe his performance as much as I needed to. Now, I realize how difficult it would be to find someone to completely capture the essence of Tupac. Shipp might have been a good choice, but I never loved his performance.

The rest of the cast is similarly problematic. I really like Danai Gurira from "The Walking Dead", but she gives a weak performance here. I was never convinced by her acting, even for a second. She gets a few moments to try and showcase her talent, but those moments all felt forced to me. It might be a combination of poor acting from Gurira, but Boom as the director deserves some blame for making her look bad. Gurira certainly put in a lot of effort, but it just didn't translate well. I disliked her performance. Kat Graham didn't feel believable as Jada Pinkett, either. That part of the film felt odd. Why were they friends? What was it besides the obvious? It just didn't work in the context of the story. Now, I do have to give Dominic L. Santana credit for playing Suge Knight. He might not have always been the best actor, but I believed him in this role. Suge is such a fascinating, Machiavellian character. I was far more interested in him than anyone else. Santana makes the movie better through his portrayal of this crazy character. I would love to see a movie about Suge. I did think it was cool that Jamal Woolard played Biggie for the second time (the last was in 2009's Notorious). His performance as Biggie here was better than the first time around. The eight years difference aged him well and he was even more believable.

At the end of the day, All Eyez on Me has some strengths and it certainly gives us valuable insight into who Tupac Shakur was. I legitimately enjoyed learning more about him. However, the movie isn't entertaining enough to hold our attention for almost 2.5 hours. The cast is a bit too hit-or-miss and the movie desperately needed stronger direction from Boom. This might have been a decent effort, but Tupac deserved better.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Straight Outta Compton, Notorious