Overrated? All signs point to yes

Rating: 5/10 (23 June 2006)

This film is a prime example of when Hollywood gets its hands on a biographical account of someone's life and continues to dramatize it to ludicrous proportions. Muhammad Ali: one of the greatest boxers of all time and he had an interesting life out of the ring too. However, this movie focuses more on overly dramatizing these outside-the-ring moments than it does capturing the essence of his greatness; which was winning fights. There is only brief mention of Ali's second fight with Frazier and nothing at all of their 3rd fight, "The Thrilla in Manilla" (arguably one of the greatest boxing matches of all time). Also, there is no mention of the 2nd fight between Foreman and Ali. Being a huge fan of historical boxing, this really bothers me.
My next bone to pick with this film is the way all of Ali's opponents (with the exception of Frazier) were portrayed as unsavory individuals who only wanted to destroy people in the ring. In other words, Ali is made up to be a near flawless guy while everyone else is plagued with vice and a terrible disposition. One thing that really irked me about the two matches that were shown against Sonny Liston are as follows: 1) Fight #1- Sonny Liston forfeited the fight due to a dislocated shoulder. NOT because he couldn't take any more of Ali's punishment.
2) Fight #2- There is no mention in the film that Liston threw the fight because of tie-ins with the St. Louis mob. Ali is portrayed as a really angry dude who annihilated Liston in response to the death of Malcolm X.
My last gripe with the film is the RIDICULOUSLY long intro and other assorted parts throughout the film where Ali first meets and romances any of his various wives. This film could have easily been 1 hr. 45 min. instead of over two and half hours and could have included more factual elements in regard to the actual boxing aspect.
On the bright side, the acting was superb (especially Jon Voight as Howard Cosell) so I'd give this movie a 5 out of 10; nowhere near perfect but it won't kill you either.