Rating: 
Summary: minus howard cossell
Review: i hated mr cossell with a passion. i loved it though. i gave this a second chance and luckilly it was really the worlds greatest. i love this kind of movie. u know exciting and epic. will smith plays muhamed ali a great boxer. he had 3 wives and is controversial. the end fight was so good i was wondering if that was really him. overall its perfect.
Rating: 
Summary: No biopic can possibly do him justice
Review: Muhammad Ali was so much bigger than life that any biopic is likely to have come up short. But to those of us who grew up watching Ali in his prime, this film is a real disappointment.Director Michael Mann is a highly talented director with films like "Heat", "The Insider" and "Last of the Mohicans" to his credit. Yet, in this film he takes the wrong tack and clutters it with boring details and excessive focus on racial issues that were ancillary to the life of a very exciting boxer and a dynamic showman. To do justice to Ali's entire life, you would have to make three films. One for the boxing, one to look behind the scenes of a complicated man, and one to chronicle his interaction with the Nation of Islam and the civil rights implications of his refusal to be inducted into the army. The most interesting of the three are the first two. Yet, Mann decides to give us the first and third elements with the greatest emphasis on the civil rights angle, which is clearly the least interesting aspect of Ali despite the controversy. It seems that Mann is on a crusade to impress us with what a central figure Ali was in the civil rights movement and that his boxing was secondary to that role. Mann wants us to believe that Ali was a civil rights leader who just happened to be a boxer, when in reality he was first and foremost an outstanding boxer with a flamboyant and arrogant attitude and a rapier wit. Mann completely neglects the element that he presents so superbly in "The Insider", the character development of the main character. In "The Insider", Mann drills deep into Wigand's (Russell Crowe) psyche and turns Bergman (Al Pacino) inside out. In "Ali", Mann glosses over Ali's motivations and concentrates more on Ali as part of a larger mosaic rather than the fascinating character he really was. He only gives a hint of the close relationship between Ali and Cosell, which could have been a film by itself. The boxing scenes were well choreographed, but overly long with too much emphasis on too few fights. Ali was one of the most active heavyweight champion ever, sometimes fighting four or five times per year, but from this film it seems like he had only four fights in his career. We didn't need to see 15 minutes of George Foreman pounding Ali against the ropes to get the idea. Will Smith does an excellent job of portraying Ali. Though he sometimes misses on Ali's rapid fire poetic cadence, he hits the mark a high percentage of the time and delivers a very realistic portrayal. In the ring, he does a passable job of imitating some of Ali's more notable moves like the "Ali Shuffle" and his penchant for dodging punches with his hands dangling by his side. But no one can come close to imitating that lightning jab. As much acclaim as Smith got for this role, John Voight steals the show as Howard Cosell. Though the physical resemblance is not that great, Voight's command of Howard's movements and speech patterns is nothing short of phenomenal. One thing that is very disappointing is that the DVD has absolutely no bonus material. This is a topic that could have provided hours of background material and original footage and there wasn't even a featurette. Overall, this film is entertaining for those who never saw Ali fight, or bad mouth an opponent in a new conference. But for those of us who were lucky enough to see this brilliant athlete and flamboyant personality in his prime, this film never leaves the ground. I rated it a 6/10. For anyone interested in the real Muhammad Ali, see "Muhammad Ali - the Whole Story", a six hour documentary that will show you why no biopic can ever do him justice.
Rating: 
Summary: Will Who?
Review: Am I the only chosen one? Com'on America stop lying, Ali's character was terrible, unconvincing, and downright unjustable to the greatest boxer of all time. The fight scenes which were supposed to be high points in the movie appeard to be low budget acting in addition to poor sound editing. The tough, straught, fearsom fighter I learned about growing up was portrayed as a 'milk it' fighter in the movie who wore his opponents out by lying on the ropes. The only emotional times in the movie I found was Malcom X's parts. Ordinary Van Peebles doesn't fit the character, but his truly great acting abilities become more convincing throughout the movie. I wanted to see if Van Peebles would shift the movie matter to Malcom X, and he perfectly did that with only two three sentence parts by using emotion. When he was nervous about asking Ali to go to Africa, when he spoke about his frustrations about the girls in the church bombings(which I found an emotional high point in the movie, that Smith correctly misunderstands-more human nature between a boxer and a person of high muslim statute),when he began to be shut out of his religious community up to his assatination. Its at that point you feel a sense of sick low and confusion for the rest of the movie. Now, tell me about an Ali fight that we havn't seen. Tell me something about this movie that we haven't known about for almost half a century. Usually when we watch a very good documenarative movie, they usually show the traits that kept a person to be so great. I read in a book a long time ago, that when Ali was little he had just missed his school bus, so he ran to school and beat the bus. When did he start fighting?, what things made him the unordinary fighter or ordinary fighter before he became the greatest? If I was Ali, I wouldn't have it. But what ya gonna do, the deal was already done.
Rating:
Summary: ALI------(** 1/2) of 4
Review: ...Michael Mann's stirring adaptation of the Muhammad Ali saga is all common fallacy of appeal to force and circular reasoning. It ponders the all-too familiar cons of the struggling boxer, who is of course waiting to make it to the top (The Hurricane, Rocky). "Ali", despite its truthful references, is a grip-n-go satire of relationship, violence, and sports, ultimately leading up to the Final Fight of victory when Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali faces big-boy George in the ring. The purpose of bringing up circular reasoning and appeal-to-force with "Ali", is that the movie is focused more on the immitations and recreations of Ali's struggles and preparation for the fights. It presents well when Will Smith is voicing the champ and portraying the right actions. Other than the facial tissue, we are left with a brick wall. Where is the emotion? Where is the greatful side? Where is the smile? There are many installments of Ali's womanizing complications, his Muslim road of life, his neglection, and even his courtroom detour of possible imprisonment after refusal of fighting in the Vietnam War; great- but why is everything about his major struggles? Weren't there issues in his time where he would sit back and smile because of them? "Ali" never gives us a proven example, and the film forces us to withstand the vision of Michael Mann and the band of screenwriters that produced this biopic sling-shot. Will Smith is the real champ here, doing his duties as an actor- making a legendary performance as Muhammad Ali. His words, his movements, his feel are all on the mark. The mere fact that his participating in this film deserves well praise alone will sustain his career for at least five years. His Oscar nomination was no surprise and was well deserved. He drives this drama where otherwise it could not have gone. However, this just isn't the right movie. This isn't "Ali". This is an exterior figure of Ali "The Champ". Where is the interior substance? Jada Pinkett-Smith, Oscar Nominee- Jon Voight, and Jamie Foxx also co-star. Voight also received an Academy Award Nomination for his supporting performance as Howard Cosell- one I think was uncalled for. His face is pure plastic and make-up. His texture works for the film, but it isn't anything magnificent. If this is the case, I'd rather give Voight an Oscar for his supporting performance as President Roosevelt in "Pearl Harbor", where is face was again revised to reveal a stunning image of old Franklin. To give "Ali" the benefit of the doubt, I will say that Will Smith and many cast members worked marvelously. It isn't the faults of the stars. It is the story that is corrupted with elongated sequences of boredom and neglection, overrunning the fact that is traveling too far, and yet not getting deep enough. The scenes that needed more depth went quickly, and the less important scenes (mainly exercises) seemed to go on for a long time. For the emptiness I left the film with, I'm going to give it a Thumbs Down. There are means to its prescence, and there are those points where it is as if they're meaningless. "Ali" is the pure example of a fighter- but it comes off as neither champion nor engaging by any means. ** 1/2 of 4...
Rating: 
Summary: Does not meet lofty expectations
Review: After reading and hearing so many good reviews about this movie I found myself disappointed at the end of it. Will Smith doesn't even try to remotely sound like Ali, and comes off as very flat. Everything "learned" about Ali in the movie is nothing new unless your very young or have been living in a cave for the past 40 years. Also, it is diffult to believe that Smith would really stand a chance against the actors who played Liston, Foreman, Fraiser, or even Chuck Wepner. As for positives, Jamie Foxx steals every scene he's in as Drew "Bundini" Brown; but that's about it.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Will Rocks as Ali! His sass-mouthed remarks on George Foreman and other opponents bring chuckles and wrinkles about my lips. He cracks me up. The show I'd recommend to friends. I admire this tough boxer. I saw some parts. This movie Rocks!!!
Rating:
Summary: over hyped
Review: Thought it was going to be an epic, turned out to be just plain pathetic. This movie lacked so much. Who cares that will smith bulk up for the role and looked a little like ali. I wanted to know more about his life. They could have shown less about the fights and more about the man...... poorly done, big budget flop, thats why it fell of the radar at the movie theaters.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated!!! slow!!
Review: I was disappointed in this movie, I think Will Smith did a good job portraying Ali, but the special they did on television a few years ago was better. For the length and the star cast of this movie, it should have been more around Ali's life, and not just boxing, we can still see original film of his bouts with Frazier, Foreman. How many children does he have? how many times has he been married? when did the first signs of his disease develop? What is his fatherly relationship that made his daughter decide she wanted to box? Too much information that could have been implemented in this movie that wasn't and they always say that a great movie cannot be made about a person, until that person is no longer among us and at this rate, Ali has been portrayed too many times, that it will not have the same effect later in years. Will Smith should have had a better script and storyline on portraying Ali, he was outstanding and its good to know that he has the ability to act as a boxer and get into the role, but the storyline to me suffered. I give the thumbs up to the actors, but the writer and the release of information from Muhammed Ali was not enough.
I recommend the t.v version of the movie with the guy from Sparks over this version. (Sorry, this is my true opinion).
Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious project
Review: Mohammed Ali is bigger than life and portraying him in a movie is a daunting task. Will Smith probably comes as close to looking, sounding and acting like Ali as a person could, but there is always a sense that the movie falls a little short of catching the essence of the man. Events in Ali's life unfold in the movie, but there is never much depth of explanation about why things happened as they did. John Voight is superb as Howard Coselle and the movie paints a close relationship between Cosell and Ali which is belied by the verbal barbs they always shot at each other on tv. There are so many important events in Ali's life that if must have been a nightmare deciding what to include. Although it has a 2 1/2 hour running time, the movie seems to end rather abruptly. Despite its flaws, Ali is an entertaining film and does hold the viewer's attention.
Rating:
Summary: failed my expectations
Review: this was not good at all. just a dumb excuse for a docudrama. its so slow even i could write it better. its really the worst movie ever.
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