User reviews

This film is way too long, I found it hard to focus on the storyline as it dragged. A shame as such a story has huge potential.

Michael Mann, after making movies such as Heat, Last of the Mohicans and Manhunter, presented himself as one of the best directors in Hollywood but I guess everybody makes mistakes. One of the mistakes is Ali. So whats wrong with this movie? Well first of all the lead actor, Will Smith. He is simply terrible and unconvincing in this role. The movie is slow paced and it seems it lasts forever, it is so boring that in the middle of the film you have no idea whats going on because your mind drifts away. Music is so so and camera work is not as half good as the one in Heat for example. If you haven't seen this film you haven't missed much.

Pic follows Muhammed Ali from 1964 to 1974 chronicling his winning the heavyweight championship, losing it and winning it again. This could have been good, but it fails in so many ways.

For starters, Will Smith is totally miscast as Ali--Ali was handsome, full of life and charismatic--Smith is none of those things. When he shouts out Ali's rhymes he comes off like a loudmouth jerk--he totally lacks Ali's sing-song voice and great personality. His face is always blank all during the film--even the fight scenes! No depth of character comes through. Also (although I realize this is a matter of opinion) Smith is ugly--Ali wasn't. All in all he's not a good enough dramatic actor to carry the film.

The script is lousy--very scattershot. It jumps all over the place and characters appear and disappear at a disturbing rate. For instance...Ali meets his second wife at a religious meeting. They just hold hands. The very next scene they're married, have a house AND a baby girl!

Michael Mann's direction doesn't help. It's constantly in closeups of the character's faces. This makes sense during the boxing scenes...you're right in there in the ring. But when it's constant it gets very annoying...especially at 160 minutes.

And the film is way too long. Two hours and forty minutes is overdoing it.

The only good thing about this is all the actors (except for Smith) are great in their roles--especially Jon Voight doing a dead on impersonation of Howard Cosell. And the fight scenes are good.

But this isn't worth seeing. If you want a good boxing movie rent "Raging Bull" or even "Rocky".

One is the obvious to most. Will Smith is only playing ... well Will Smith. He fails completely to convince viewers he is the depicted real life popular subject matter. This hurts the depth of the biography. Because when you think it is only Will Smith you are watching you remember back to his days on the often vapid 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' series where one big frustration was that he was living in such a TV-like world on the show and one that bore no resemblance to reality at all. By bringing that handicap to this film you again feel he is living in a now movie fictional existence!

The other problem with this film is a problem that the actual Muhammed Ali had. It was his very public denouncing of the US's war in Vietnam. A little know known but true fact about the war Ali was so against is that the US was up against Ho Chi Minh a North Vietnamese dictator who mass-murderer many landlords in his country in the 1950s. Did Ali ever know this or care about this fact when he went in his criticism of the US in this war? A very true and important point to remember when you watch this film. (Even Ken Burns, celebrated documentary filmmaker, showed Ho to be such a mass-murderer!)

Michael Mann's 3-hour epic about one of the greatest and most charismatic athletes of the 20th Century was an ambitious project and a noble venture, but falls hard. Too bad this film, Ali, was boring and almost as hard to endure as Oprah's Beloved. Sadly, this film, with bold aim and a careless hand largely missed the mark.

Will Smith displays his best and most studied acting as Muhammad Ali himself, along side other great actors who play titan roles. Jon Voight as sportscaster legend Howard Cosell, and Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X also shine. Still the dramatic potency of the cast is weighed down by the storyline's inertia.

Perhaps what doomed the film was that the timeline stuck militantly to Ali's life between the years of 1965 to 1975. Unfortunately, much of what was shown of this decade focused less on boxing and more on personal affairs, as it spent much time on Ali being banned from the sport and scorned by the establishment for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. And while (in real life) Ali's court case went on for years during his ban from the sport, the film didn't go the route of The People Versus Larry Flint, focusing on intellectual ventures surrounding the legal fight.

Besides the great acting, the only high spike in Ali is the scene surrounding the Rumble in the Jungle fight that took place between Ali and George Foreman, in Zaire in 1975. Here, Mann does deserve some credit for transitioning his underlying assertion –that Ali was a universal and influential American icon—to the build up and anticipation about this legend challenging and beating the new champ Foreman.

Like most sports fans, I wanted to see this charismatic, inspirational man and prolific athlete fight titans in the ring, not fighting sociopolitical causes or punching wind against partisan apparitions. Maybe shame on me for wanting Ali to be more like Rocky and less like Against All Odds.

written by Andy Frye, MySportsComplex.blogspot.com

Oh, this movie is hideous. Okay, I'm 15 years old, and I personally don't know much about Muhammad Ali, other then he was a great boxer, he's a legend, etc.. Maybe that's why I didn't like this film, I'm not sure; but what I do know, is that for most of the film I wasn't sure in what direction it was going- in a bad way.

The film seems to want to show me what Ali did in his life, his accomplishments, his falls, the interesting stories that surrounded him and the people around him, but unfortunately mostly all I get to see is WHO he did in his life, and THAT isn't even portrayed well. This film blasts through major events, important conversations, and pivotal moments so quickly I can barely understand what's going on. I understand it would have helped if I knew a bit about the man himself before I saw the movie, but the day I start studying to go see a movie isn't anytime soon.

The whole movie I felt like I had missed something important, but I didn't, it just goes so fast it seems that way. If there is any savor in this entire film it's Will Smith's performance, which was in fact worth mentioning, I feel bad it couldn't have been used better.

I am a huge fan of Michael Mann and a boxing historian. As a result, I was rather thrilled to see that Mann was chosen to do this film, he is very gifted. I was less than thrilled to see Will Smith get this role, however, I was willing to give it a fair shot. Well, I was let down in a big way. I really think this film got lost in the edit. They took the most fascinating boxer in the history of the sport, who fought in more big fights than any other, and made a rather dull movie. In fact, this movie has the looks of a made for TV mini-series. However, the most upsetting thing about it, is Mann's insistence on focussing on such trivial matters. Most of the main events of Ali's life are skimmed and long extended scenes are given to nothing, like Ali dancing. I did not buy Smith, he looked like the Fresh Prince trying to pretend he was Ali. Never did I once buy him as Ali. Voight was pathetic as Cossell and the actors that were brought in to play such characters as Sonny Liston were poor. Overall, this movie, although made by a legend, failed to capture the essence of the the "Greatest."

The odds were a million to one (or thereabouts) when challenger Cassius Clay climbed into the ring against heavyweight champion of the world Sonny Liston in 1964. Liston had wrested the title from Floyd Patterson in 60 seconds flat; the rematch lasted only moments longer. Clay had been floored by the Brit, Henry Cooper, en route to a tko win. (There's an old joke in boxing: If you wanted to take all of the British heavyweights in the world and lay them end to end from here to the moon... you probably could.) The oddsmakers had already measured Clay for a pine box by the night of the fight. So what does he do? He beats the daylights out of one of the most fearsome heavyweight champions of all time, using lateral movement (a study in perpetual motion, if ever there was one) and a piston-like left jab that cut the brutish champion and eventually began to buckle his knees. Clay even went so far as to taunt his opponent throughout the bout. It was one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight boxing history.

The foregoing information is nowhere to be gleaned in ALI. By omitting these facts, Michael Mann does his movie (and his audience) a great disservice. He actually undercuts the drama by failing to build suspense. On the plus side, his use of professional boxers in all of the major fight scenes is to be commended: this lends the film a verisimilitude lacking in most "boxing movies." The punch-for-punch recreation of some of the most memorable moments from some of the 20th century's greatest fights is likewise laudable. (The fidelity to the fisticuffs alone makes this a must-see for fight fans.) Certainly there are few scenes in the history of fight films as powerful as the slo-mo shot of "Sonny Liston" spitting out his mouthpiece after his drubbing at the hands of his brash challenger.

A bit of narration, here and there, could've added immeasurably to the fight scenes; could've given non-boxing fans unfamiliar with the history of The Game something tangible to hold on to. Nor would it have hurt to have actually shown the destruction of both Joe Frazier and Ken Norton by George "Thunderfist" Foreman. The significance would've been clear, even to a non-fan, of the four-round elimination of the only two men to have beaten Ali up to that time. (Frazier had battled Ali toe-to-toe for a total of 27 rounds, Norton 24, without so much as a handful of points separating them. Frazier fell in 2 brutal rounds to Foreman- losing his coveted heavyweight title in the process- and Norton, who'd broken Ali's jaw, went in two as well. How could anyone have expected Ali to beat Foreman and regain the title? The notion at that time was nothing less than preposterous!) (Footnote: Consider this, as well: Mike Tyson, hailed by many as the greatest thing since bottled milk, pulled out of a big payday with the geriatric George Foreman. Tyson understood something that a lot of people did not: that even an over-the-hill George Foreman still had the power to separate a champion from his title, as he later showed. Not that it mattered, as Tyson was kayoed by Buster Douglas, the man he opted to face in lieu of Foreman.)

There are moments of great beauty in this film, and any true boxing fan needs to see it (if only for the beautifully-choreographed fight scenes, which put to shame the lame-brained antics in the ROCKY movies), but anyone who doesn't follow The Sweet Science may find themselves outside looking in.

Ali is, alas, a mess of a movie, thanks to Michael Mann's self-indulgence and lack of focus. I have admired his previous work, which makes his utter incompetence here so surprising. Mann refuses to impose any narrative structure onto Ali's life story, so we get scenes that go nowhere, characters whose significance in Ali's life appears to be non-existant, and some scenes that don't have anything to do with Ali at all. Some scenes are extended beyong tedium, such as a sequence of Ali doing roadwork in preparation for the Rumble in the Jungle.

The film does feature fine performances from Will Smith (who captures a young Ali's bravado), Mario Van Peebles (who deserved an Oscar nomination as Malcolm X), Jamie Foxx, Mykaleti Williamson and Ron Silver. Jon Voight did get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Howard Cosell, but he merely does a competent impersonation and besides, Cosell was too small a player in Ali' life and in this film to warrent it.

I'm not saying I wanted an old fashioned bio-pic like The Life of Emile Zola or The Babe Ruth Story, where reality is chucked in favor of a cliche riddled plot; but as a writer/director Mann had to make decisions about what to focus on and what to leave out, and he didn't make those decisions. I give it a 4 out of 10.

The best thing about this movie is the actors. Wil Smith was a great Ali. As were the both unrecognizable Mario Van Peebles (Malcom X) and Jon Voight. And, Jamie Fox gave a memorable performance as Bundini. This movie had some really beautiful moments between characters, but all were under developed and in many cases they didn't bother identifying the characters (who was Paul Rodrigez supposed to be?) This film left me wondering what Muhammed Ali was really like. At times they seemed to forget to focus on Ali. Oh yeah, and someone should take out whoever's responsible for the shaky camera shots. It was worse than the Blair Witch Project.

Will Smith did an amazing job portraying Mr. Ali, in all the aspects of his life. My girl, friend who knew nothing about him, now knows how great a fighter, and a man Mr. Ali was. The problem is they did a terrible job portraying his life. The Thrilla In Mannila was a greater, more monumental fight than the Rumble in the Jungle. And it wasn't even mentioned, let alone given 1/3 of the film like the Rumble was. Also, there was no mention of his Olympic Gold Medal. That was a huge part of his early life and career. These oversights brought down the movie.

Smith gives a terrific performance about the life and times of one Muhammad Ali (aka Cassius Clay), but the movie lacks the momentum to give the viewer any real definition as to the purpose of the film. Certainly it's a tribute to the great boxer, but there is no entertainment value in watching the brilliance of Ali onscreen.

There is nobility in the effort the actors give in order to make the movie authentic (and it is, in spades!) but there is just no reason for you to feel connected or moved at any time during the film.

I saw this movie and left the theatre feeling somewhat conflicted. On one hand I saw a fantastic and believable performance by Smith, while on the other hand the movie lulls and goes nowhere.

I simply did not enjoy this movie at all, I left the theatre feeling 5 bucks lighter and not moved a bit.

this film was a big disappointment, it made Ali look like a real simple-minded guy. Example: he didn't go to the army because they drafted him as Cassius Clay? I am sure it was not like that. But the film really makes him look like someone who just obsessed with a couple of thins and was just too stubborn or simply too idiot to let go. There are a couple of interesting scenes in the film, and the matches are interestingly filmed, but otherwise this is a really long, really slow movie that wants to say a lot about a lot and finally manages to pass its hero as the village idiot. Will Smith did a good job in gaining weight, but finally it's still Will Smith with a funny voice. Not that he didn't try - but he has too strong a personality himself, he's too known to convince as Ali. It is a real pitty, I am sure the film does not do honour to Mr Ali. Even if he is as extravagant a personnality, he cannot be as stupid!

Why would you make a movie about arguably the greatest boxer of all time and only include about ten minutes of on-screen boxing altogether? Who decided that the blood feud between Ali and Joe Frazier was not worthy of more that a fleeting glimpse of Frazier and his huge left hook that dropped Ali in the 11th of their first fight?

This is Movie expectations turned inside out. A great and stylish Director making a film with almost no stylistic charm, and a mediocre Actor giving a complete and against type performance. Who would have thunk it?

This is a boring film about a flamboyant, talented athlete. It is almost an impossible task to take the turmoil and turbulence of such an interesting career in a troubled and spirited time place and make it into a shallow, confusing, indifferent, monotonous movie.

It is a failed film that is a complete mess of meanderings through a World Champion fighters fight for civil rights, religious freedom, conscientious objection, and rebellious recognition. There are some, but very few attractions. The boxing is well handled visually, but lack comprehension of outcomes and nuances. The supporting cast, locations and ambiance are fine as are all the extras.

There are also too many soulful tunes that seem intrusive as background and are given way too much attention. All in all Ali is at best a misfire and at worst a disorienting Biography.

Muhammad Ali is perhaps the most photographed, filmed and written about sports figures of all time. His life story, the victories against Sonny Liston, conversion to Islam and subsequent suspension and return to the ring, has been told and retold in movies, documentaries and books, ad nauseum. The question then is what could Ali tell us about the real Ali that we don't already know? The answer, unfortunately is nothing.

Will Smith, who looks nothing like the real Ali, has the unenviable task of portraying a man whose face and voice are seared into our collective subconscious. He tries hard, but I did not for one minute believe that Smith was really Ali. He is also unable to duplicate Ali's incredible grace and speed in the ring. Jon Voight, of all people, plays Howard Cosell wearing what looks like a Halloween mask. I found the boxing scenes unconvincing and boring.

All of Ali's major fights, in addition to interviews with Ali and the important people in his life are available on the internet. Why would anyone be interested in seeing this movie?

Mann's film was respectful to the champion, nothing more. Most all of the mainstream critics got it right, the film was much more like a funeral procession than the encapsulation of the life of the most dynamic sports figure in history.

Michael Man's film falls short in many respects. I remember the meeting between Bundini Brown and Ali as it was orchestrated in the film as something primary in Ali's story, since its placement so early on in the film and just the importance that the director chose to give that event...nothing could be further from the truth.

Thomas Hauser's biography would not have been a bad template for this film. Where was Ali throwing his Olympic gold medal into a flowing river? Renting a bus and driving to Florida in order to torment Sunny Liston in the middle of the night before he became champion? At one time at the height of his popularity, Ali said of himself, "More people know me than Jesus Christ." He may have been right. As a reviewer noted, Mann succeeded in making Ali smaller than life.

Spike Lee has stated that When Will Smith came to him and asked, "Spike, I need you to expand your vision for this film," Lee knew he wasn't going to get the job. Interestingly, Man's film does play in a similar tone to Malcolm X. It was said by Lee also that Man's people scouted all of the same locations that he used in X. I'm not sure that Lee would have brought anything earthshaking to the film, but he would have spiced it up.

The film needed a broader scope, and a much, much bigger vision. And if the budget for some reason couldn't contain the scope, than the correct vision could have been enough to propel the film into the stratosphere to which it naturally belonged.

Cassius Clay [Smith] overcomes many obstacles (including his name) to be the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Oh dear! Surely the basic tenet of a biopic is to tell the viewer something about the title character above and beyond the collection of cliches and soundbites we've already come to know and...

Michael Mann must have had the best intentions here, I mean - God knows he's not a bad director; but this (away from the acting and some slick editing) is a cinematic mess! When a movie exploring the life of one person throws up more questions for the viewer than answers, I think we've got ourselves a problem. Muhammad Ali was one of the finest boxers of the 20th Century. Does this film tell us why he became a boxer? NO. Does it tell us what drove him so much as a boxer? NO. Does it even tell us how he really considered each victory and the occasional defeat? NO. He was a scandalous womaniser. Do we find out why? NO. We just observe that he seemingly had to act like a slag. Do we discover how this tallied with his deep Muslim faith? NO. We don't even discover WHY he was so desperate to have a deep Muslim faith! (Despite the consternation of his family and no matter how flawed and selective he was about Islam's role in his life!!). In short - it's FAQ off! (So to speak). Anything you wanted to know about the title character of this film will not be on view for the entire, overlong duration of this film.

My biggest unanswered bugbear though regards Ali's name change from Cassius Clay. If it was purely a slave reason then surely all he needed to remove was the name Clay as that was the only association with some distant anaemic 'master'. The name Cassius was a result of his Romanophile father. How does that link to slavery? Are you a slave if your parents dictate your name? (This debate has a certain infinity about it...!!!) Whatever. The upshot is that this film tells us that the slave name - Clay - was removed first making him Cassius X and then the whole name was changed. And unless you have a fluid understanding of the Islamic faith - this film never explains why! Indeed, because Mann (et al!) decided that clever (and obtuse) cinematic collages were the key elements of this film in deference to any attempt at narrative, we learn precious little about what made Ali take most (if any) of his steps to glory and infamy. In fact, by half-way into the film, you are left with the (surely unintentional) impression that Ali was an arrogant, bigoted, misogynist arse-hole who deserved any misfortune that came his way. Brave film-making indeed!!??!!

The vast majority of this confused picture is both morally and emotionally muddy. Ali's romances suffer from a painful mixture of bad underwriting and way OTT pithy (and sadly, dirgy) soundtracks. {Fans of black music may feel somewhat cheated here as the verging-on-racist soundtrack would seem to suggest that African American's have only ever written maudlin, self-pitying ballads. Mann (or whoever!) seems to have suffered a blinkered amnesia when it comes to the likes of Chuck Berry; Jackie Wilson the Supremes et al. All contemporaries of Ali and all conspicuously absent in this film's mundane musicality.} As to the writing. It puts rubbish in the mouths of minor supporting characters {some spurious trash about Lennon being the only smart Beatle is incredible!} and soundbites in the mouth of it's lead. Virtually the only interesting things poor Muhammad seems to have to say for himself are in press conferences or in the ring; and sadly, these remain the film's only few highpoints. The bouts are powerfully done and Ali's relationship with Howard Cosell [a knockout(!) Voight] give the film some rare and welcome warmth. Likewise, a press conference with Don King [a wonderful Mykelti Williamson] and Angelo Dundee [a faultless but woefully underwritten and underused Ron Silver] provides Ali with his most solid show of humanity as he defends his training mentor (Dundee)against a typically robust King. It also sadly reminds us of another missed relationship opportunity. Instead, the film concentrates on an overstretched exposition of Ali's totally naive admiration for the notorious black leader, Malcolm X [a distinguished Mario van Peebles], a relationship which turns sour for the most unconvincing of reasons: Namely, that Malcolm wanted to take a different direction from his Muslim overlords. Clearly self determination was only something Ali was allowed. (Frankly, I reckon the relationship was doomed as long as Malcolm hung on to his Western Christian name!). As it is, Malcolm is portrayed as by far and away the better human being. Again. This cannot be the intention?? Michael??

But what about Smith? Well. He's outstanding. But he's given no help whatsoever by writer or director because - and this is the tragedy of it all - this is a whole lot of nothing movie! It has no heart. It attempts to show you it's trying it's hardest when we can all see the naked Emperor it really and truly is! It's just a collection of soundbites and highlights. Handbags and gladrags. It's a gross disappointment and not worthy of the name it purports to celebrate.

Don't watch this film.

It's just awful. If you were sitting in the waiting room at a hospital, you would think it's ok. But that's because you just fell off a ladder and your shin bone is protruding through the skin and you can't go anywhere else to get it fixed. This movie, the blind musician (Ray?), and the Freddy Mercury biopic are all the same. They make it super simple with 1-2 minutes focusing on certain moments of his life, and off to the next one. It's so hollow and ubiquitous. Acting is great & directing is great. But once it hits the editing room, they just churn out this flavorless stream of scenes and glue it all together. No thank you.

No pace, Just slow and dull. And the first ten minutes with extremely annoying soundtrack and incomprehensive clips almost made me turn off.

If one really wants to know the history and legacy of Cassius Clay/Mohamed Ali, there are a number of great documentaries about the man, his life and his fights.

This was an ambitious film with good sound editing and cinematography. The issue here was the screenplay. Its not a complete or satisfying telling of the man's life. There is nothing about his early life, his Olympic Gold Medal days. It all begins with the first Liston fight and ends with the Foreman fight, and at the same time, this film runs almost 3 hours.

Ali's most famous fight, the 3rd Frazier fight, is completely omitted. Ali almost died after this fight. Ali becoming a mental vegetable in his 50s was considered to his taking way too much punishment during his fighting days. Surely this is an important part of the story?

Another thing missing, his horrific treatment of Joe Frazier. He called the man an ape, a monkey and an Uncle Tom.

This was a huge waste of resources. It was well regarded when it came out, but this will become a forgotten film. Will Smith was a B- as Ali.