|
Let me start off with saying that I was disappointed with
"Ali"--a film that could have been a historical
epic, but turned out being a mediocre boxing flick. I
was expecting a biography of Muhammad Ali's entire life,
from youth to old age, but instead received a fraction of
his life, beginning with the fight in which he first won the
heavyweight championship, and ending with the famous 'Rumble
in the Jungle'. The acting was exceptional, but the
plot was kind of dull.
Will Smith does an outstanding job as Cassius Clay, who
later changes his name to Muhammad Ali. Smith gained
close to 35 pounds for the role and did some considerable
bulking up, going through the same training as most other
heavyweight fighters. The transformation from Fresh
Prince to Ali was needed and is wonderful to watch
onscreen--it doesn't even look like the same guy who was one
part of the MIB. Though Smith is outstanding, the two
great performance come from Jamie Foxx as ringside motivator
Bundini Brown, and Jon Voight as sportscaster Howard Cosell.
Voight should definitely be given some attention come Oscar
time, as should Foxx to a lesser extent. Plus, Mario
Van Peebles is fine as Malcolm X in his first mainstream
picture in a while (I think his last was that
"Universal Soldier"-esque movie "Solo").
Real life wife Jada Pinkett Smith portrays Ali's first wife,
Nona Gaye (daughter of legend Marvin Gaye) is Ali's second
wife, and newcomer Michael Michelle is Ali's third wife.
His fourth wife is never seen onscreen. Real life
boxers were brought in to play heavyweights Sonny Liston,
Joe Frazier, and George Forman, but Smith is still able to
keep his own against such towering and monstrous opponents.
In fact, watching him in the ring, Smith looks more like a
prize fighter than any of the other men. Also, Ron
Silver (the man who has only been in B movies for the past
few years) pulls a come back as Ali's manager, and Paul
Rodriguez is in the picture a lot, though he has zero
speaking lines. And, of course, boxing promoter Don
King pops up, portrayed with zest and charisma by Bubba
himself, Mykelti Williamson.
The most enjoyable aspect of "Ali" were the well
shot fight sequences, especially the sequence between Ali
and Forman at the end of the film. However, despite
such fabulous acting and fight scenes, the film is boring.
There is one sequence in Africa towards the end of the film
in which Ali goes jogging. The jogging sequence takes
at least ten minutes and there is one five minute stretch of
Ali staring at a picture of himself on a shack. Was
such a lengthy scene necessary? No. The same
impact could have come from a two minute jogging scene.
Alas, director Michael Mann saw the need to show us each and
every road of the Nigerian village in which the film was
shot.
Michael Mann, award winning director of "The
Insider" and "Heat", slips a little with
"Ali", a film that disappointed me because of a
great, yet almost invisible lack of vision. It could
have been another "Patton" or another
"Malcolm X", but instead flops a little and falls
into the category of a "Wyatt Earp". Smith,
Voight, Foxx, and Peebles do a fantastic job of keeping us
interested for a majority of the film, but the rest is so
bogged down with senseless scenes and interludes that we
find our eyes slowly beginning to show signs of tiredness.
"Ali" is a good film for people who enjoy sitting
through lengthy amounts of time in a movie theater, and
"Ali" is good for anyone who wants a brief and
fractionated history of the great fighter, but anyone
looking for a great biography or an in-depth psychological
examination into his mind will be highly disappointed.
Though it could have went the entire 15 rounds,
"Ali" gets knocked out in the third.
-- Billy
Ray (
2 out of 4 pops )
Talk
about this film with other Popkorn Junkies |
|
Other Junkie's
opinions.....
Matt ( 3 out of 4
pops )
I'm not going to say this is a powerful, groundbreaking biography.
However, I found it very interesting. It runs close to three
hours (those who've seen Mann's previous films "Heat" and
"The Insider" shouldn't be surprised), but it's never entirely
boring, even though the film occasionally drags. I learned a lot
about Ali that I never knew previously, being that his boxing career was
before my time. Will Smith does a superb acting job, and they did
an amazingly good job at making him look as much like Ali as possible.
They also made Jon Voight--who you can barely recognize--look a hell of
a lot like Howard Cossell. I also loved the score, especially
during the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" match at the end.
Mike ( 2 out of 4
pops )
There is both good and bad with regards to the film "Ali".
The Good: Smith pulls off playing Ali perfectly, especially with the
boxing scenes. The boxing scenes and the music are excellent here.
The Bad: Way too much focus on the Islam stuff and Malcolm X.
Worst is the poor buildup and display of the Ali-Frazier fight at
Madison Sq Garden. This was a huge event but was passed over way
too fast in the film. Plus... they didn't even show or mention the
second Frazier-Ali fight which was a great fight and again a huge event.
A terrible omission in the film I think. The film dragged a lot in
places and I got bored during some long drawn out scenes. Not the
great film I had anticipated from Michael Mann. But I give Will Smith
credit, he pulled off playing Ali much better than I thought he would.
Patsy ( 1 1/2 out of
4 pops )
I sort of feel bad that I have to give this movie such a bad rating, but
I really did not like it. I didn't know much about Muhammad Ali
before I saw the movie and I from what I did know (that we was really
cocky) I didn't like him much. After seeing this movie I like the
man even LESS. He's basically an unpatriotic, poser, misogynistic,
cocky, jerk. Yeah, he may be a great boxer, but Mike Tyson is a
great boxer too-- just because he is good at a sport doesn't mean I
have to like him (personally I think Mike Tyson is scary evil).
Anyway, besides my personal feelings about the main character I thought
the movie was boring (I'd say that at least 1/3 of it consisted of
slow-motion boxing sequences) and at times confusing (I didn't know what
was going on-- too many holes). Unless you really like boxing or
Muhammad Ali don't see this movie-- if you wanna see a better movie
about Muhammad that actually stars Muhammad (weird huh?) rent "The
Greatest"-- I never saw it (why would I?) but I hear it's better
and it's gotta be funny to actually see Ali play himself in a movie
about himself.
|
