Yet another awful true story' picture that fails.

Rating: 1/10 (2 July 2003)

Where to start. Lights, cameras, action and slow motions and that's about it, unfortunately. There's something that Hollywood must learn about biographical film making is that you must show something that the public hasn't seen before. The reason for the appeal of films like this is to get under the skin of the person in question, see what goes on behind closed doors.
What was Ali really like in reality, was he more than the public, rude, arrogant, cocky, but great fighter or was he really that sad and one dimensional. Unfortunately after watching this bore-a-thon, I can only assume he was that dull.
They clearly should have shown his childhood and his decent into his later years, this would have been much more interesting, and they could have cut out the rather boring and over long fight scenes. I'm sure everyone already knew the results of the fights anyway.
For some strange reason the film also drifted into a mini bio of Malcolm X and general re-cap of the civil rights struggles of black Americans. This is all very interesting, but already done to death and please keep it out of a film about Ali.
I can't say Will Smiths performance was anything other than just adequate, he never had me believing he wasn't Will Smith.
3/10.