I Want This Movie To Be So Much Better Than It Is

Rating: 4/10 (2 March 2017)

The life of Muhammad Ali (both inside and outside the ring) is one of the most fascinating in all of sports or US history. At times, this movie captures those moments. Sadly, it doesn't catch nearly enough of them, focuses on the wrong things, and ends up a bloated, ponderous exercise in preachy film-making.
For a basic plot summary, "Ali" opens with Cassius Clay (Will Smith) defeating Sonny Liston (Michael Bentt) to become the boxing heavyweight champion of the world. Shortly after this event, Clay falls in the Muslim Brotherhood, befriending such figures as Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) & Herbert Muhammad (Barry Shabaka Henley). He also begins a romantic relationship with Sonji Roi (Jada Pinkett Smith) that is often tumultuous due to Ali's interpretations of the Muslim faith. Entering the prime of his fighting career, Ali is then drafted into the Vietnam War, which he refuses to participate in. As a result, he is stripped of his boxing license and not even able to leave the country. After years of fighting the U.S. government, Ali is finally able to be reinstated, where he gets the "Fight of the Century" with Joe Frazier (James Toney) and then the "Rumble In The Jungle" against George Foreman (Charles Shufford).
Judged purely on film-making and directing, "Ali" isn't even a three-star effort. It is overly preachy when it comes to the "political stuff", and director Michael Mann uses such a weird style. About every 20 minutes or so, there is an extended musical sequence, all of which (besides maybe the opening one) only serve to grind the intensity of the film to a complete halt. Every time the action starts to progress again...it's back to another strange interlude.
There are two other problems with the film that are quite glaring:
1. There is nothing (at least in terms of style) that director Mann really gets right during the film. The political side of things is definitely important to the Ali story, but in this case it is preachy and over-the-top. Then, when it comes to the boxing fare, there are too many historical inaccuracies to consider even those scenes a true success. Maybe those who know nothing about Ali won't care, but those who have a little background will be appalled to hearing Ali's famous poem used before the Frazier fight instead of Liston, or seeing Ali & Frazier getting buddy-buddy with each other before their fight (in reality, Frazier couldn't stand Ali until very late in his life when some amends were made).
2. For a movie titled "Ali", this should have focused on the entirety of Ali's life. That would have made for a much better story. Ali had a very interesting childhood, and also had some genre- defining moments late in his life as well. Those areas weren't even sniffed in this adaptation, which is a shame, as the film instead to give so much valuable time to the political/religious side of things.
I'm sure by now you are probably wondering why I can even give this film three stars. Well, the main reason is because Will Smith turns in perhaps the greatest acting performance I have ever seen...bar none. He IS Ali in this picture, plain and simple. The times (sadly rare as they are) where Smith is given the chance to rant and rave like Ali once did are easily the best parts of the film. His interactions with Howard Cosell (played by Jon Voight) are also special.
Also, the fight scenes are probably the most well-done boxing action I've even seen in a film. The fights manage to be both dramatic and realistic at the same time, which is no easy task in such a violent (yet also very tactical) sport.
Overall, though, "Ali" is first and foremost a disappointment. Even a three-star rating probably holds some personal bias of how much I simply WANT the film to be better than it is. While Smith's iconic Ali performance will certainly stand for ages, it's sad that it has to be surrounded by such sloppy film-making. I would suggest "When We Were Kings" or "Facing Ali" for a much better nod to Ali's unique career and culture-defining role in American society.