Tupac: Resurrection
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: November 14, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Miami HeraldEvelyn Mcdonnell
Tupac Amaru Shakur is riveting in Tupac: Resurrection. The rapper is a compelling, charismatic hero: articulate, well-read, politically radical, and movie-star handsome to boot (he in fact starred in Poetic Justice and Juice). Make that, was riveting. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
As you listen to his uncanny narration of Tupac: Resurrection, which is stitched together from interviews, you realize you're not listening to the usual self-important vacancies from celebrity Q&As, but to spoken prose of a high order, in which analysis, memory and poetry come together seamlessly in sentences and paragraphs that sound as if they were written. Read full review
88
PremierePeter Debruge
Resurrection is a revelation. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's no insult to Tupac to say that he was gangsta rap's greatest matinee idol, or that he lived the part only too well. Read full review
80
Film ThreatEric Campos
Takes a look at the man’s entire life and grants us an eye-opening look inside his brain. And now that the supposed be-all-end-all documentary has been made, let’s let the guy get some f----- rest, okay? Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
A poet warrior of the first order emerges in this riveting chronicle of the brief life and times of rap superstar Tupac Shakur. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The film leaves viewers with the sad, even tragic sense that his legacy would have been more profound had he gotten out of his own way. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
The result isn't a fragmentary experience so much as an evocative collage. Read full review
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
The results are highly subjective perhaps, but highly entertaining just the same and make an interesting companion piece to Nick Broomfield’s "Biggie And Tupac." Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Lazin's remarkable achievement is to catch Tupac in the act of discovering himself. It's something to see. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerDan De Luca
It's a compelling piece of propaganda that argues for Shakur, whose 1996 murder in Las Vegas at age 25 remains unsolved, as a complicated individual, ambitious artist and magnetic personality by using the most persuasive weapons at its command: Tupac himself. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Mostly, it's a story of violence, and it's superbly told. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The movie is like an extra-strength episode of MTV's ''Diary,'' which is like ''A&E Biography'' in the first person. Only ''Resurrection'' has a subject who's been dead for six years. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
If you've never heard his voice, this is your chance, and you should take it. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
Has many puff-piece moments to it and barely touches the controversy surrounding Tupac's death or that of rival hip-hop impresario Biggie Smalls. But it's engaging nonetheless. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleJames Sullivan
Charismatic to a fault, he had the look of a prince, with a genuine smile; long, feminine eyelashes; and a forbiddingly shaved cranium. Read full review
70
VarietyDennis Harvey
Lazin has without question skillfully assembled an entertaining, strongly narrative nonfiction package. Read full review
70
Village VoiceLaura Sinagra
Though the edits can be too living-room smooth, the passion and pathology on display transcend the Tabitha Soren overload. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Especially good at showing how unnervingly, even heartbreakingly contradictory this man could be. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
This fine, persuasive movie will have to serve as his testament, and it's a fitting one. How many men can say they wrote their own epitaphs in their own blood? Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Detailed but, ultimately, one-sided. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
Though there must be a dozen U.S. presidents who have never had a documentary made about them, the late Tupac Shakur could rate his own section in video stores, placed between "music" and "action." Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
It borders on deification. Yet Tupac: Resurrection is still a strong film, with some genuinely revealing insights into the life of its charismatic and paradoxical subject. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Doesn't pretend to be objective, and the film derives much of its power from the way it invites audiences to look at the rapper's life and times through his own soulful, animated eyes. It doesn't always succeed, and there are times when it feels terribly strained. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
There's too much self-congratulatory showbiz overkill, and one is forced to wonder exactly who is getting paid, and how much, for leading this parade in his honor. Otherwise, this project makes it easy for anyone to understand the sanctified, semi-crazed star and the elements that created and destroyed him. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Needless to say, other voices -- any other voices -- would have given this legacy-obsessed film an invaluable context for such a fiery, scrutinized subject, but Tupac: Resurrection (with that fabulously unsubtle title) is intended to be more video bible than textbook. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Ms. Lazin succeeds in conjuring his presence and in showing how smart and likable he could be, but the film's perspective is frustratingly limited. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Making Shakur the narrator works pretty well at first...But once he becomes an overnight star at age 20, his relentless self-articulation to Tabitha Soren begins to sound like the usual white noise of celebrity, his ideas about race and power in America potent but undeveloped. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneKevin M. Williams
The biggest problem with the muddled mea culpa that is "Tupac" is that it is a kiss-up rather than a real examination of the rapper's life, so that anyone can speculate about what he might have become. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
In the end, Tupac: Resurrection gives us too much raw Tupac, and yet somehow not enough. He remains a mystery -- one who still sells lots and lots of records. Read full review
50
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Paints a vivid portrait of a compelling young man but, perhaps inevitably, goes overboard on the deification. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The irony is that Shakur's speaking voice is the film's greatest asset: His transformation from eager-to-please teenager to gangsta icon is vividly apparent in the sound bites. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
MTV offers an airbrushed portrait that does nothing but perpetuate the myth of an "angelic" hoodlum. Read full review
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