I already saw "When We Were Kings"...

Rating: 6/10 (20 September 2006)

Let me start off by saying Will Smith did a fantastic job of recreating Ali, and in general, it was a well acted, well shot film. But that's about all it was, this movie had the feel of a documentary, at times it seemed to be a clip by clip re-shoot of moments that were caught on film when they happened. I already saw "When We Were Kings", I certainly didn't need to see all of those same moments re-shot without any additional insight.
In the life of such a public and publicized figure, the facts are fairly well known by much the audience, where this movie fails is in it almost complete lack of insight into the private thoughts and emotions of the principal players. Muhammad Ali was a man who was a constant performer and I know I was hoping to get real insight into what he felt during some of the trying times in his life.
I guess I am penalizing this movie for my own expectations, but I hardly feel my expectations were unreasonable. In the end, it is a good movie for a younger generation who knows little about Muhammad Ali and wants to get a pretty good impression of who the man was. Of course, as good of a job as Smith does being Ali, there are countless hours of video where Ali is doing a better job of being Ali, and this movie just doesn't bring anything new to that table.