An overlong and superficial mess of a film

trublu215

score 3/10

When I think Tupac Shakur, I think poet before rapper. For a man that made a career out of being a rapper, his lyrics and his music fit the soul of an aged poet. And like most people, he was a flawed man that was prone to the violent underbelly that often lurks in the Hip-Hop world. You take a man like that and many would be flabbergasted to even believe his life story as fact. The larger than life being of him should have made a great film. Instead, Benny Boom's All Eyez On Me is a vague biopic that never comes close to reaching the heights of Tupac's life and career. Plagued with a poor script, bad acting and lazy direction, All Eyez On Me falls very short of the extremely high expectations for this film.

The film itself is poorly written. While some scenes are tense and Boom does achieve a sense of uneasiness, he completely fails at conveying any real drama with his actors. The film also is simply glossing over Tupac's life and leaving the viewer to rely on what fan's would call common knowledge. While I did know a little more than your average Joe, I couldn't imagine the film playing to the overall masses who do not know these little trivias about the man himself. It was pretty annoying. While the script is partly to blame, my biggest complaint lies with the most important part of the film: Demitrius Shipp.

While I can't deny Shipp looks exactly like Tupac, I have to say the man is terrible as Tupac. He doesn't have the voice, bravado or swagger of Shakur. He feels like a simplistic imitation of him that, with more work and direction, could have been something. Afeni Shakur is portrayed by The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira. Gurira is criminally underused here and really never lives up to the potential that her role could have had. Dominic Santana as Suge Knight is extremely corny. He plays the character like a mix between a street thug and a lost puppy. Whatever he was going for, it didn't land at all.

Overall, All Eyez on Me is a film that relies on the glitz and glamour of Tupac's life instead of what made him who he was. The film tries to capitalize off of the major success of the much more superior Straight Outta Compton. While it does have energetic music sequences that seem to sacrifice story for a cool editing trick, it never really recovers from erratic scenes of drama that really never land and a really dull central performance from Demetrius Shipp.

trublu215 14 June 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3730867/