tries too hard to be serious

Rating: 3/10 (3 January 2007)

I was not impressed with this movie. It seems that Mann and possibly Smith made a conscious effort to downplay the flamboyant side of Ali and make a serious film about one of the most entertaining athletes possibly of all time. The ironic thing is that move films go the opposite direction and exaggerate real characters. If you watch the real interviews with Ali back in the day, especially before the Sonny Liston fight, he was way over the top and Smith plays him much more subdued. I can understand that they wanted to show the serious side of Ali, but my make the interesting boring? Why take away from Ali, the very real very calculated showman? THis movie reinforced my belief that Smith is highly overrated and overpaid as an actor (and he can't rap either). Men in Black is probably the best he can do. The only thing he had going for him was his height and the extra muscle he put on, but he does not do a very good impression of Ali, and it has been commented how Ali's very pronounced Kentucky accent comes and goes from Smith and hardly seems to be there at all. Hell, I think *I* could even do a better Ali and I'm white! I also agree about the accuracy, the famous "what's my name" tirade of Ali was much more interesting if you watch the actual footage, instead they just had him punching Terrell yelling it, not nearly as interesting.
Overall, give this movie a pass, watch "When We were kings" instead for the real Ali or even search youtube.com.