All Eyez On Me (2017)

God where do I even start. I did not enjoy this. I did not enjoy this anywhere near as much as I wanted to. Let's get stuck in. All Eyez On Me tells the 'true' 'untold' story of prolific rapper, actor, poet and activist Tupac Shakur. Now I say 'true' as immediately after the premier Jada Pinkett Smith tweeted about the liberties that were taken with her history with Tupac and how things actually happened. In addition to this,  a little reading shows the original director John Singleton, the only director that had Shakur's mother's approval, couldn't agree with the studio on Tupac's portrayal and left. So take that as you will but music video director Benny Boom is not the intended director for this vision and I think you can see that.

It's a pretty messy film. For the first part of the film the narrative is structured around Tupac being interviewed in prison and the events that lead up to that. The beginning 45 minutes were erratic flashbacks from before Tupac was born to how he became a recording artist and his release from prison. It was little better than a PowerPoint presentation. Like a list of bullet points from Wikipedia were quickly run through. And all as if it were under a tight time limit. It was so quickly paced I had no idea how it was going to rack up to the unnecessary 140 minute run time. The film skims over a lot of vital and interesting information about Shakur and the period of which this was happening. Everyone knows he was a rapper shot before his time but the film doesn't give much more than that. We're given incredibly little about his introduction to the music and film industry, both of which would have been for a more interesting choice to develop over other aspects. All Eyez On Me tries to squeeze an entire impressive life into a couple hours and struggled. The odd pacing and time span meant we were given so many characters so briefly we had little time to care about any of them. Which is a real shame because the cast was not the problem.

Demetrius Shipp Jr plays lead Tupac Shakur. He has a good likeness and believability to him. Some short scenes with intimate characters he shows real feeling. They seem like brief genuine moments with his best friend or his mother. His rapping isn't perfect, as you would have expected from the real legend, Shipp Jr appears to be miming quite often. Some parts, granted, were music videos so we're more likely to appear staged but still. He does get into a good flow on stage and does embody Shakur quite well. His mother, Black Panther Afeni Shakur is played by The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira and she smashed it. In part for me because I didn't see kick ass zombie killer Michonne, I saw a completely different strong black woman with a vision that happens to be Tupac's mum. She had more weight than most characters but again things were a little brief. She's a real person that could easily have a feature length about her and her alone. Gurira is a great actress but it felt as if she was given flamboyant direction at times. The direction is less than subtle throughout. That's pretty much the only full relationship we see with Tupac.

His stepfather has two short scenes, his sister isn't seen in the second half of the film, nor is Jada Pinkett. His first mentor and manager is given a single scene and about 6 words. Many of his entourage and other rappers aren't consistently named. Jamal Woodard returns to play Biggie Smalls as he did in Notorious (2009) but their relationship has shallow development, blink and you'll miss it. Biggies wife Faith Evans is suddenly brought in and taken out just as fast. Tupac's wife Keisha Morris isn't included, his fiance Kidada Jones isn't mentioned by name until her third scene. If that sounded like a whirlwind it's because it is, it's a mess.

There's a great deal of assumption on the audience, assuming they know the time and real story well enough to ignore many necessary introductions. I'm a fan of Tupac, not seen all of his films and was not old enough to witness him in his peak or his death. I knew a decent amount about his life through pop culture but I was hoping for more, I wanted to learn about him and the difference he made but you don't get that. If you don't know much about him or his life you may get lost. Though on the contrary maybe you might enjoy it more going in with a blank slate, but I'd be wary that you might just get confused.

The film doesn't explore its themes in a way that it should and had the potential to. It doesn't much discuss the East Coast/West Coast or Crips/Bloods situation. It shows the relationship between police and African Americans with an awkward severity that doesn't seem quite authentic. Acknowledging the Black Panthers but not whole heartedly diving in with their values was clearly a choice to put Tupac as priority but the Black Panthers are hardly a movement that can be danced over lightly. Regards to his activism again we were whipped over any remnants of that. As a child of Black Panther activists he is shown to have a certain mindset and in parts he does appear to have a strong sense of beliefs. There's a good scene discussing his song 'Brenda's got a Baby' that solidifies this. But we barely get 10 minutes to accept the character as that person. The entire film is a mismatch of what is and isn't necessary for a biopic. An awkward montage of his life without presenting the meaning or influence that he had.

I'd almost say to watch it to hear 'California Love' in cinema surround sound. That sounded great, it had some great tracks. Otherwise the sound was nothing special. Had a few foreboding moments where they played a Jaws like theme which felt out of place with the rest of the film as it rarely had an actual score in place. The editing was terribly messy considering it's done by Academy Award winner Joel Cox. There's random slo mo, far too many cuts during action sequences and was overall quite distracting during performances. Same goes for the cinematography, boring until highlighted as tacky with editing. Clearly the signs of a director used to a 4 minute run time.

You won't gain anything from this film. Watch Gridlock'd, listen to Tupac's greatest hits and go watch Straight Outta Compton 4/10

CINEMATES - A