Tupac: Resurrection
In ''Tupac: Resurrection,'' the slain rapper and actor Tupac Shakur narrates the story of his life and ultimately his demise. This is good news for the fans, conspiracy theorists, and cultural thinkers who've made him a hip-hop messiah: Easter comes twice this year.
MTV and Shakur's mother, Afeni, produced this documentary, which consists of ancient interview footage that director Lauren Lazin has sculpted into a strangely gripping celebrity profile. 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.
But why should that stop him from taking us through his boyhood in Harlem, then Baltimore, then Oakland, to his life as a hip-hop force who had run-ins with the California cops and
P. Diddy? It shouldn't. He's a pop star, and because more people know of Shakur in death than they ever did in his lifetime, like Kurt Cobain's, his story achieves the sort of general-interest intrigue associated with potboilers and certain issues of People magazine. The movie does a fine job of telling us the things we could assume (he loves the ladies) and then wowing us with all manner of personal trivia. We're shown things that not even the most loyal Tupacolytes would have guessed: He called Tony Danza, Mickey Rourke, and Madonna ''friend.'' There's also a clip of a young Shakur and lifelong pal Jada Pinkett doing hip-hop's now defunct dance the Wop to ''Parents Just Don't Understand,'' a record rapped by Pinkett's future husband, Fresh Prince Will Smith.
Viewers familiar with neither Shakur's mind nor his music -- let alone the proper pronunciation of his name (for the last time, it's ''too-POCK'') -- are likely to be pleased with the scope of his introspection. He had a fascinating awareness of his contradictions: an idealist and a troublemaker, a well-educated thinker who wanted off America's streets but a self-described thug who thrived on them.
He was convinced that fame changed the world around him while he remained essentially the same. But trouble never seemed to have a problem finding him, from his conviction in 1995 on a rape charge, for which he served 11 months, right up to his mysterious death in 1996. In ''Resurrection,'' the final 15 minutes are devoted to that Las Vegas homicide, and they achieve a scary, apocalyptic knell.
All this dramatization, as well as the movie's pedigree, would seem grist for cynics and Tupac purists, folks insistent that repackaging his trials and tribulations for the megaplex smacks of exploitation. That seems true, despite his mother's participation. Then, the posthumous albums that show up about once a year seem opportunistic, too.
The fact is that ''Resurrection'' helps feed the idea that Shakur might still be among us. He also happens to be an artist whose murder still preoccupies the media. But Lazin, who has made a number of MTV documentaries, isn't out to solve Shakur's murder. Her suspicion that Sean ''P. Diddy'' Combs and Biggie Smalls, who appear together in old clips, had something to do with it is unambiguous. ''Resurrection,'' though, doesn't run around speculatively overturning gravestones the way the British documentarian Nick Broomfield did in last year's thrilling manhunt ''Biggie and Tupac.'' For one thing, any investigative reporting that appears in Lazin's film is strictly archival: Former MTV journalist Tabitha Soren gets up close and personal with Shakur throughout the film, giving what's arguably a meaty supporting performance. (When he professes his desire for all kinds of women, she's visibly miffed that he's overlooked her.)
Lazin even includes this notorious and characteristically smarmy description of Shakur from anchor Kurt Loder: ''Rapper, actor, and sex-abuse convict.'' The film reminds us that until fairly recently MTV News was a generation's CNN, staffed by educated writers and reporters who sometimes separated the person from the commodity.
Those days seem over. But the MTV News of yesterday is returned to its pop-probing glory in ''Tupac: Resurrection.'' And we realize the movie is actually about two ghosts.
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