So Long, Yet So Wanting (Possible Spoilers)

Rating: 5/10 (16 January 2004)

Wil Smith did an admirable job of portraying Ali, as Jon Voight did as Cosell, but the story was too unfocused, trying to touch on too many aspects of Ali's life. It touches on his life as a boxer, a husband, a Muslim, and an African-American. While each one of these topics, in regards to Ali's life, could qualify for a movie by itself the movie does paint a decent picture of the chaos surrounding Ali's life during the ten-year period of his life featured in the film. The movie only covers his life from his defeat of Liston to his defeat of Foreman. It briefly touches on his relationship with Malcolm X and to a greater extent with the Nation of Islam, but their isn't a lot of depth and detail. You don't really get an in depth understanding of many of the political issues underlying the motives of the Nation of Islam or how they were really using Ali to their own ends. I think that Ali being who he was, when he was, had a great impact on the person he became and could have made into good movie material.
The movie doesn't cover any of Ali's development as a fighter. It just provides some of the highlights from some of the biggest fights of his career; none of his first professional fights, nor his Olympic experience, nor anything about how he became involved with boxing in the first place. It leaves a lot to be desired if you want to know a lot about how Ali became such an amazing boxer and the true range of opponents he faced and vanquished.
Next, it seems like in every other section of the movie Ali is finding a new flame, divorcing the old one, and marrying the new one shortly thereafter. There is no real study to his weakness for women and how it really affected him and his life. Its just kind of put out there without any real examination of the women involved or the impact this had on any of the children he had.
Lastly, it really doesn't go in depth to explain his relationships with his father, Cassius Clay, Sr., or Drew Brown or Angelo Dundee. We know how he met his father, but not how he met the rest of these people and what his relationships were really like with them. There was just so much that was glossed over.
This movie was just one big gloss over of what probably were the ten most turbulent years of Ali's life. All the potential to be a great film, but the delivery just didn't add up. The characters and life events were there, but all were just under utilized. The film isn't bad to watch, but it can make you want to change the channel or take a break at some points.