Ali

Rating:
Summary: No Magic, No Drama. Will Smith just playing Will Smith.
Review: Word-of-mouth is true about this one. This movie is a bummer. It's just Will Smith playing Will Smith, but he almost had the voice down. But he would lose the voice occasionally. The fight scenes are uninteresting. Will Smith looked as if he was scared of a stunt punch. Unlike the real Muhammand Ali in those days. Perhaps Laurence Fishburne should have been cast as Ali. No magic or drama to this film. I recommend the original film that Muhammand Ali made on his life story starring Muhannand Ali himself, THE GREATEST (1977). Muhammand Ali was also good in FREEDOM ROAD (1979-TVM).

Rating:
Summary: Should be a five-stars movie, but it's not
Review: Muhammad Ali is surely one great character and his life undoubtedly renders a great movie script. When I found out "Ali" was going to be made, I was eager to see it from the first moment. After watching it yesterday, I was a little disappointed.

First of all, "Ali" covers only ten years of Muhammad's life. Sure, those were the "best" ten years in Ali's life, when he was at the top of his boxing career, when he converted to muslim religion, when he was a friend of Malcolm X's. But certainly, Ali's life is much more than that. Even if the movie is longer than 150 minutes, I was, at the end, feeling that there was something missing (and there really was). Another low point of the movie is Michael Mann's direction. After "Heat" and "The insider" (two movies I really enjoyed), he changed his style, and Ali's was a blend of Steven Soderbergh and Oliver Stone. Maybe Mann wanted his movie to be like a documentary, but that was not the point in "Ali" (there is already a tremendous documentary about Ali, called "When we were kings").

Now, the good parts: the producers worked hard and found actors that really resemble the fighters, specially George Foreman. Will Smith does not resemble Ali, but Smith does a competent job as the protagonist. Aside from his good acting, his leg and feet movements are impressibly close to what Ali did in the ring. I also have to mention Mario van Peebles as Malcolm X, Mykelti Williamson as Don King (funny) and John Voight as sports-anchor Howard Cosell. But the main award should go to Jamie Foxx as Ali's drug-addicted, priest-like jew companion Bundini Brown. Great performance.

Anyway, Ali was not what I expected. But it's an interesting movie about one of the greatest boxers, personalities and characters of the XX century.

Grade 8.0/10

Rating:
Summary: the mann-spinoti connection!!!!!
Review: i just saw this movie on hbo....and i was amazed!!!....this is a very different film (well everything that comes out of michael mann vision is quite different!). i just have to say that i loved it. yes, it's slow , long and inconcistant, at is not an action film! if you want action, get a Jackie Chan film. This movie is amazing!!! And the recreation of the fight scenes are just magical, thanks to master director Michael Mann.
i'm very surpised of what a great actor will smith can be...it just about the roles!!..great acting all the way. Dante Spinoti gives once more an unforgetable cinematographic journey, wich is a tradition in almost all michael mann movies. over all the film is really entertaining. I'm a film student and a huge Michael Mann/Dante Spinoti fan and this film is a great oportunity to see this two masters work together. Class a film all the way. So if you really want to see a different american movie...try this and pay great attention to the visual that cinematic gennius spinoti brings on to this films. The sountrack, like in every Mann movie, is just espectacular!
Don't pay attention to the others people reviews, they are just used to watch the typical every day movie. sorry for the spelling, i'm not from the U.S.A, but this doesn't mean that i don't know a great movie when i see one.

Rating:
Summary: THE REAL FIGHT
Review: Why you may ask a movie about ALI?After all,you can still view most of his championship fights on vidéo.The reason is that it gives WILL SMITH a good part to play.I didn't really appreciate the opening montage and this crosscutting with a SAM COOKE concert.I think that they wanted to show the emergence of black people in the sixties.I especially liked parts of the film like those funny press conferences in which ALI demonstrates his acting ability.If you actually accept what the script wants you to beleive,ALI is basically a womanizer.The religious aspect and the army jinks could not be tossed apart, simply because they really were an important issue at the time.Overall,this film should not mesmerize you to a degry of greatness.Still,WILL SMITH certainly trows knockout acting punches and makes it worth viewing.Honours should also go to JON VOIGHT and the creator of the HOWARD COSSELL facial mask.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: In the words of Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) in "On The Waterfront", this coulda been a contenda.

But somehow it falls short of its potential.

My main gripe with this film is what most people praise it for.

Will Smith.

I think Smith was somehow overwhelmed by this role. He doesn't deliver that witty repertoire like the man himself. His voice actually trails off a lot of the time. Listen carefully and you'll see what I mean. Likewise, that expression on his face...He looks perpetually scared! I know many will disagree with me, but I think Smith was the wrong choice to play Ali.

Michael Mann directed the excellent "The Insider" so I was expecting more from this film. It isn't really much more than a retrospective of part of Ali's career. And most people know this part of the story. Ali wins the heavyweight title, converts to Nation of Islam, befriends Howard Cosell, gets screwed by the system, comes back and beats Foreman. No surprises there.

I was REALLY hoping the film would have focused on the more interesting and tragic part of Ali's career that followed the fight in Zaire. You know, when he got older, fought Frazier in Manila, turned to Sunni Islam, lost and regained the title from Leon Spinks, got screwed over by Don King, came back to fight Larry Holmes but was humiliated, retired and suffered from Parkinsons Syndrome, lit the torch at Atlanta, etc.

I was hoping for more of a biopic kind of feel.

"Ali" disappoints in this regard. It only focuses on 1966-1972. This is a shame. I think they could have shortened some of the fight scenes. I mean, this wasn't supposed to be a "Rocky" film but rather a film about Ali the man.

"Ali" is stylish and if you don't know a lot about Ali, you might enjoy this. I mean, it's a fascinating story up to that point. It's just something that's been told over water coolers and even at lecture halls all these years that you probably already know it.

Jamie Foxx's portrayal of Drew Bundini is great. I keep raving about how talented Mr. Foxx is. The way he took an obscure character and made it his own is remarkable. It might be worth waiting for this to air on cable just to see Foxx's performance.

I should add that the soundtrack for this movie is very good. If you like old time jazz/funk, just get the movie soundtrack.

So forget Ali. There's a James J. Braddock movie coming out next year. Let's hope they don't screw that up. BOXING RULES!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Muhammed Ali is the greatest and will always be the greatest boxer that ever lived! This movie was wonderful in portraying the life of such a powerful individual.

Throughout the movie all I could think of was that words have power -- it was the power of his WORDS that made Muhammed Ali great . . . Because his words proclaimed him into being the Heavy Weight Champion of the World again and again!

Rating:
Summary: Will...not disappoint !
Review: Will Smith and Michael Mann take on Muhammed Ali with maximum perfection. The movie never fails. It tells the story of the rise of the greatest athlete that ever lived into the boxing world, his victories in both the Rumble In The Jungle and Thrilla In Manilla, his funny confrontations with Howard Cosell, who is remarkably impersonated and portayed by Jon Voight, and his many wives, which Ali refers to as a "weakness towards women".

The only weakness about this DVD is the extra features segment...there are no features! I sure would have liked to see a behind the scenes segment, or an interview with Will or Ali himself with their thoughts regarding the movie. The music video by R Kelly would have also been nice to have here. But the film which is almost 3 hours is a great viewing experience.

With one star off the rating for an empty DVD, Ali is the one of the strongest films out there today.

I'd highly recommend the special edition DVD that I hope Columbia Pictures is planning to release soon.

But until then, this DVD version is a must-have!

Rating:
Summary: Lets change our name because we're a sissy...
Review: this guy doesnt deserve to have his name printed on the cover of a movie. Between his racist, black panther life and his draft dodging alter ego they should have burned him at the stake years ago......stupid peanut head.

Rating:
Summary: Ali nothing special
Review: Going into "Ali", a Micheal Mann film, I thought this was going to be an absolutely great movie. As the credits began to roll however, I was a little dissapointed. The movie is very sluggish and seems to be forever explaining itself. It is also not what most people I have talked to expected. There isn't enough fighting, and I'm sorry but that's what was selling the movie from the beginning...Will Smith in the ring. I probably wouldn't recommend this movie to many, but you may enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Michael Mann's visual poem on the life of the champ
Review: The ad campaign for Ali focused on Will Smith's Oscar nominated portrayal of Muhammed Ali, but in the end I found this to really be director Michael Mann's film. Like "The Last of the Mohicans," this is also a film where the leading man looks intently while the music surges. Mann has always been enamored of letting music carry a moment (first evidenced by his use of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" for the climatic scene of "Manhunter") and "Ali" is certainly no exception. The film begins with a montage of Cassius Clay out running as part of his training for his first title fight with Sonny Liston mixed with images of formative influences on Clay growing up and Sam Cooke (David Elliott) performing in a Harlem nightclub. Unfortunately, the film never reaches this high initial peak again during the rest of the film.

"Ali" is not a traditional biopic in that those who know little about the champ's life are not going to understand what is going on. The strategy of mouthing off at every opportunity to convince Liston that the young Cassius Clay was psychotic or the "rope a dope" tactic that Ali used to defeat George Foreman (Charles Shufford), are implicit at best. In this regard the film clearly works better with those who know enough of Ali's life to fill in the pieces (the scene were Ali are Joe Frazier (James Toney) drive around in a car together planning their first fight was one of the film's few revelations for me). Mann creates something of a patterned mosaic, where there are fights, women, and interviews with Howard Cosell (Jon Voight), while Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) and Martin Luther King, Jr. are gunned down. What cuts through this is Ali's refusal to be drafted into the Army to go and fight in Vietnam. At the end of the film as Ali trains for the "Rumble in Jungle" his run through the streets of Zaire reprises the opening but the repetition rings hollow.

There are scenes where Smith gets to spout off some of Ali's wonderful rants, but it is clearly established that this is not the "real" Ali. The moments in the film when we think we glimpse the real man are, paradoxically, not those in which he is talking but those in which he is quiet, his eyes taking in the world around him and leaving it to us to figure out what is going on in his mind. If there is any moment in the film where Ali is laid bared it is when he is punishing Ernie Terrell (Alfred Cole) for having called him Clay: Ali refuses to finish his opponent off, hitting Terrell again and again, repeatedly shouting "What's my name?"

I also want to take Mann to task for having reduced the first fight with Frazier to the end of the fight, choosing to omit the shocking image of Ali on the canvas, wearing those shoes with the tassels. Especially since this is a film that takes the time to give the audience a sense in the final fight of how long Ali let Foreman pound on him against the ropes, waiting for the right moment. Fortunately, a lot of the film's faults are covered by Smith's performance, which has been deservedly praised for avoiding the pitfalls of caricature. Ali's legion of fans will enjoy this film more than others, but in the end "Ali" falls short of being as epic as the man himself.