All Eyez on Me

Damn!! Had the so called pleasure of seeing this so called Biopic of Tupac today, and well as you can see by my rating and the title it is not good. But do not think i am a hater, I love most films. And for the people who know me, they know how much I admire and love Pac. So it was incredible disappointing to see this garbage. It baffles me how even the actors involved were okay with this. This film has just bunch of random scenes, which have no connection to one an another and no introduction to lead them in, it was like the writers, and i do mean writers! because there was 3 decided to put random scenes and then were like "How are we going to connect them? what will be their part in the overall story" and the director replied "Who cares, we will show the audience the progression from Tupac from child to adult and have it in between interview with him, trust me it will look cool" But it didn't. Not only that, but some of them were not introduced or had any real meaning to the story, while others were complete lies. Jada Pikett-Smith came out and said every scene involving her was a lie and never happened! What?! Gotta be joke, right?... Nope, its true. She came out and publicly said it. I cant believe that after such great story telling biopics like Notorious B.I.G and N.W.A we get this piece of trash! I'm sorry but this movie was terrible. They made Pac look like an idiot. its that simple, he listened and agreed with people in the film from first contact, his actions and rise to fame were overlooked by him acting like a spoilt brat. his charisma and portrayal of thug life, gangster type was non-existent as he coward back from any real decision in the film. Do yourself a favor and watch Tupac: Resurrection 2003 documentary then this film! It is much better.

Generally am somebody who dislikes rap, being a diverse listener of music while raised primarily on classical and opera as a result of coming from a musical family. However, once in a while there are rap/hip hop figures that are talented and have music that is more than tolerable for rap.

One such example is Christopher "Notorious B.I.G" Wallace, whose life was documented in the 2009 film 'Notorious', which did have issues but there were things such as the brilliant performance of Jamal Woolward that made it watchable. Another example is Tupac, whose life is documented here in 2017's 'All Eyez on Me'. 'All Eyez On Me' could have been good, for somebody who did have an interesting life. Unfortunately it really does fail to do this artist and his life justice.

'All Eyez on Me' isn't without redeeming values. Its best asset, and the only outstanding thing about it, is the lead performance of Demetrius Shipp Jr, who perfected Tupac's look and mannerisms to startling effect. The cast were largely miss, but there were a couple of hits in the form of Jamal Woolward, again as Notorious B.I.G, and particularly Kat Graham who really tries to give some heart to the film and to her scenes with Shipp Jnr.

However, 'All Eyez On Me' goes on for far too long (have sat through many long films and there are a lot that are brilliant, such as 'Lawrence of Arabia', 'Ben Hur' and 'Gone With the Wind) and such a length isn't justified by how little it does with its content. It does try to cram in too much, some of it in a short space of time, and doesn't explore any of it in enough detail. Some scenes were random and unnecessary, succeeding in slowing the film down and making one question why they were there in the first place.

With the information given in 'All Eyez On Me', it all felt like a series of bullet points, explored in cliff-notes form at best and at worst telling us nothing. Didn't care for the idea to spell out Tupac's every thought when it once again tells us little, as one can see 'All Eyez On Me' is very short on revelations or anything new (which is misleading as it was advertised in a way that it would tell us something new and un-told) which is frustrating and feels like a cheat for fans. Some of it, especially the scenes detailing Tupac's relationship with Jada, felt like the truth had been distorted for dramatic effect/license.

Didn't see the need for the narration either in filmed interview form, that was very clumsily inserted and basically spoon-fed events with no subtlety whatsoever. Amateur hour Youtube and music videos have better production values than here, and while the music was good a lot of the placing was random. It's all poorly scripted, flatly directed and whose bright idea was it to bring in performers and such as themselves and not give them anything to do.

In conclusion, Tupac deserved better, in no way does 'All Eyez On Me', despite Shipp Jnr and Graham's valiant efforts, do the man and his very interesting (which couldn't have been less compellingly depicted here) life justice. 2/10 Bethany Cox

The hype about this movie was unreal. Things like "We will make Biigie's movie look like a cartoon" were flying around everywhere....

What a colossal disappointment. To have the life of such a person and character like Tupac and mess it up this bad, takes a special kind of bad. I thought that a small scale studio would have done a better job in exploring some unknown past but instead it focused on all the mainstream points of his life trying to shove a song anywhere they could.

The whole movie had zero flow, nothing seems to connect to the previous or future scene. It just feels like a mash-up documentary that someone made on Youtube and threw in a few Tupac songs.

The point of the movie was to make people discover and appreciate the personality, vision and spirit of Tupac. To show that he was a visionary and more than just another "rapper" from the block who cares about money, ice and women. Tupac was like shown as someone who is only hungry for glory and needs to settle some score instead of reaching out to people and connecting with them through music.

I can't really find one good thing about the movie except the Tupac's mom who only felt like a real person. The rest of the cast is flat out trash with no previous experience acting anywhere.

If you are a fan of Tupac, avoid this garbage at all costs...

Clearly attempting to capitalize off the success of Straight Outta Compton, All Eyez on Me is a decent biopic that glosses over and ignores what made Tupac a legend. Focusing mostly on his rap career, his rise to fame, his conflicts with Biggie and Bad Boy Records and his untimely and still unsolved murder, it glosses over his activism, his poetry and his captivating artistry. Tupac was an incredible human being who died too young and this film doesnt do enough justice to his legend

They said John Singleton was trying to defame Tupac with his script, I'm starting to wonder if they lied. It barely touches on his younger life, glosses over the main bits and moves on way too fast. The dialogue is boring. The controversial sexual assault scene did not go the way he said it went so I'm wondering how much more was fiction.

One of the biggest things I noticed was that Tupac was almost too perfect. People know he wasn't perfect, he was flawed, he was paranoid and he had a hot temper to go with it. This movie skips all of that. It's too scared to show anything that may put him in a bad light, but fans of Tupac accept his flaws and respect him regardless. Perhaps the next director who picks this up should remember that.

Although the acting wasn't too bad and mostly the script was shabby, I've always thought Romany Malco would be a better fit for Tupac since he has a stronger on-screen presence and more acting experience.

Someone needs to pick this back up and do a movie that actually fits his legacy, I'm not even a big fan of rap music or Tupac, but if the Biggie Smalls movie and NWA movie got such great reviews and actually did a good job, I can't imagine how annoyed Tupac fans are feeling that this is by far the weaker of the free.

My recommendation, do not pay to go see this movie at the cinema. It doesn't deserve any box office plaudits. It needs to bomb to put the people behind it to shame.