Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings Like a Bee - NOT

Rating: 4/10 (2 January 2007)

I was looking forward to this film, especially after reading some of the reviews here, and had hopes of getting an idea of Muhammad Ali the Man beyond Ali the Icon, but came out with neither. The film covers Ali's first world pro heavyweight title fight against Sonny Liston in '64 and ends in The Rumble in the Jungle against Foreman in '74, with the Vietnam controversy in the middle. Turbulent times which the director Michael Mann unsuccessfully portrays.
Some reviewers here have applauded Will Smith's portrayal of the charismatic, dynamic and quick-thinking boxer. I can't say Will Smith did a bad job, but the film worked against his efforts. The film has too many characters, and too many characters without personality. When you place the world champion boxer side to side with other icons like Malcolm X, Don King, Howard Cosell and Martin Luther King some personality description has to give. Unfortunately it turned out to be all the protagonists lost - at times Mohammad Ali the person was no more than a lackluster cut-out figure around which the other icons of the time revolved.
The cinematography was sombre, dark and lethargic. The musical score is similarly a heavy-handed monotonous base, indicating a misplaced mood of impending doom (!). The director Michael Mann has used this type of scoring to great effect in films like Manhunter (1986) and Heat (1995) - here it simply is formulaic and confusing. OK so the director wanted to describe a dark period in American history with race riots and the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King but this was never fully explored. There is also a lack of emphasis on boxing in the film, which would be OK if it was replaced with a new and interesting point-of-view, but here it just was sacrificed to no end.
It's hard for me to recommend this film to anyone. Someone new to Ali's greatness would never get it from the movie. Someone who has more than a fleeting acquaintance with Ali's life will be confused by how the period of 1968-1974 is misrepresented.
I have to agree with director Spike Lee's comment - how can it be possible to make a boring movie about one of the most exciting figures of the 20th century?