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Parents' Guide to

All Eyez on Me

By Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Edgy but bland biopic fails to capture Tupac's genius.

Movie R 2017 140 minutes
All Eyez on Me Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 17+

Based on 5 parent reviews

age 18+
https://youtu.be/ZKs8ku-AaGI
age 17+
Bogus!

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5 ):
Kids say (1 ):

Newcomer Shipp Jr. is well cast as Tupac, but the movie, unlike Tupac's own storytelling, is sluggish and generic; it doesn't adequately capture the artist's unique genius. Director Benny Boom has made music videos and one other feature, the terrible Next Day Air. Working from a screenplay by three writers, he frames the movie with Tupac giving an interview to a journalist while in prison. It's an old device, and it allows the filmmaker to smooth over (or ignore) the more challenging aspects of Shakur's life.

All Eyez on Me -- named for Shakur's 1996 double-LP masterpiece -- proceeds through chunks of time, showing what happened but not really clarifying how or why. Some events are covered so lazily and some characters are so poorly introduced that only die-hard fans who already know his story will be able to fill in the blanks. On the plus side, the music sequences are dynamic and truly come alive thanks to Shipp's dynamic embodiment of the performer and the fact that Shakur's actual recordings are used. But this is an unworthy movie, and viewers would be better off checking out Shakuir's Live at the House of Blues video or his performances in movies like Juice and Gridlock'd.

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