So many movies of the brand-spankin’ variety available this week in home viewing. You’ve got your bona fide awesomeness, some better-than-you-think big budget bombs, and one flaming piece of garbage. And more! More! So much, there may be no reason to leave home all week. Except to go see It, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDn73s-oEJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VC0aSPfyQk
This week in The Screening Room, we discuss Cars 3, 47 Meters Down, All Eyez on Me, Rough Night, and the new releases on home video. CLICK HERE to join us!
by George Wolf
After being woven through films such as Notorious and Straight Outta Compton, the life of Tupac Shakur finally gets its own treatment in All Eyez on Me, an earnest biopic ultimately too comprehensive for its own good.
Demetrius Shipp, Jr., boasting an uncanny resemblance in an electric screen debut, captures Tupac’s fire and swagger, while Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead, Mother of George) is ferociously compelling as Tupac’s mother (and former Black Panther) Afeni Shakur. Their scenes together consistently deliver the emotional heft lacking elsewhere.
Director Benny Boom, a veteran of music video and television projects, is committed but becomes waylaid with an unfocused meandering.
After a promising start fleshing out the drive and outrage that sprung from Shakur’s upbringing, Boom and his writing team get bogged down with a scope more dutiful than effective. In an effort to tell as much of Tupac’s story as possible, All Eyez on Me loses the chance to show us the depth that made him an icon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VC0aSPfyQk
