Ali
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Movie Reviews of Ali
Movie Review: Amazing record of Ali's life
Summary: 4 Stars
Liked it very much. The movie instigate me to do additional research about Ali's life and people around him, in special,
Malcon X. I have being suggesting it for many friends.
Movie Review: Good Quality
Summary: 4 Stars
I've purchased this movie for a gift and I tested it before. Everything was fine with it. besides that, is not one of my favorites to be honest :)Movie Review: All The Sting Of A Butterfly
Summary: 3 Stars
All summer, as I experienced one dreadful film after another, I developed a mantra to get me through. "New films by Scorcese, Mann, Darabont, Crowe and the "Rushmore" guys are due before the end of the year. How bad could the year be?" Well, Miramax, in their infinite wisdom, delayed Scorcese's "Gangs of New York". Apparently, they were concerned about the public's reaction to a film set in 19th Century New York after the attacks of September 11. Presumably, they are using the extra time to use computers to erase any shots of the World Trade Center. That left four films to anticipate and hope for. A 50% batting average is pretty bad. "The Royal Tennenbaums" is a great film. "The Majestic" is a very good film. Hmmm. That leaves the Cameron Crowe and Michael Mann films. Both filmmakers have created some of my favorite films of all time. So it is extremely disappointing to have the experience of watching Mann's "Ali", starring Will Smith.
"Ali" tells the story of Muhammad Ali (Will Smith) from 1964 until the famous Rumble In The Jungle. It seems to be a faithful visual recreation of the important events, but this is merely the frosting on the cake. What we don't get is the cake. The poster tagline is "Forget everything you know". Well, I don't know that much about his life, but I knew most of what was depicted. What wasn't depicted very successfully was `Why?'. The area the film depicts very well is Ali's struggle with religion. A brief flashback depicts his mixed feelings about his father's (Giancarlo Esposito) religion. This coupled with his feelings about race and the struggle of the African American man leads him to Malcolm X (Mario Van Pebbles) and the Muslim religion. Some of the film depicts their relationship, but then Ali seems to make a very conscious decision, yet the decision isn't depicted or explained. During the course of the film, Ali falls in love with three women, yet the moment when each relationship ends is not explained very well or very carefully. Most of the relationships in the film are handled in a fairly short-handed manner. We find out how they met, but the end of the relationship is left in the dark. Other relationships are just there and we really don't get an idea of how they met Ali or why the relationship continues. For instance, Ali's trainer Angelo Dundee (Ron Silver) is his trainer throughout the course of the story, but why? Howard Bingham (Jeffrey Wright), a photographer, appears to be at every event depicted in the film, snapping photographs. Each of these characters is really flat. Neither is developed and only seems to serve as background. Drew "Bundini" Brown (Jamie Foxx) appears to have been Ali's main supporter during his rise, yet, again, I have to ask `Why?' All of these questions are all the more shocking when you consider the filmmaker. Michael Mann directed "Heat", a great crime epic, starring DeNiro and Pacino. In "Heat" every single supporting character had a backstory which was explored, giving the film a rich texture.
Will Smith clearly spent a lot of time and effort trying to develop his performance as Ali and he does a good job. He is emotional, bombastic, intelligent and motivated. All qualities that I would imagine the real Ali has in spades. But without the direction and the story to complement him, the performance lacks a large element. Why is he like this? What made him like this? We don't ever really find out. A little bit about his life is revealed in his relationship with Malcolm X and the Muslim religion, a little of his struggle with the US and his draft notice. What is lacking is any of the motivation behind his training and his rise to the top.
Technically, the film is very good. The film opens with a montage depicting Ali training at the gym as he remembers two key moments in his life. The editing work is good and reveals some of the depth of his character. As the film progresses, the shaky handheld camera work used so consistently becomes annoying and detracts from the film. Meant to evoke a documentary, it robs the film of grandeur and style.
Most annoyingly, we really learn nothing about what made Ali a great athlete. We don't see how he trained differently, how he fought differently, anything.
"Ali" really is a disappointing film that did little to illuminate the life of a great athlete.
Movie Review: Where is the Champ?
Summary: 3 Stars
ALI is nothing but a playful punch. Telling the tale of the boxer, Muhammad Ali, the movie goes through his life, starting with the early matches before his rise to fame and struggles with keeping himself in the boxing game after joining the Nation of Islam, to his name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, simultaneous romantic relationships, and refusal to join the Vietnam War. Though the film is accurate in the portrayal of events and the character of Ali and even delves into aspects of racism not explored in other films, ALI seems to have no clear single point of view or message about the titular character.
Directed by Michael Mann, with Will Smith in the lead role, the movie starts off with Ali, then named Cassius Clay, training, followed by a match. Proceeding to cliche examples of African-American discrimination with shots of bus segregation and police targeting of blacks, the movie's development seems undirected indeed. Unexplained scenes of the Nation of Islam gathering and Malcolm X making speeches did not help in clearing up what was going on for the audience. It seems that this film had no direction from the get go.
Only after an hour into the movie, do we get a taste of what Mann was trying to communicate from the start. After an onslaught of story exposition and character establishment, story development finally started, if in the least of the name. Ali starts to receive consequences for his constant flirtation and multiple relationships with women, and a backlash for his abrupt name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. His valued relationships start to fall apart, as arguments begin and marriages are divorced. The public is shocked by his name change, and even his fellow boxers refuse to call him by his new name, which causes violence from the champ, as he wants to be acknowledged as Muhammad Ali from now on. That said, this development still presents no clear point. At first sight, one may feel that the writers are trying to show that Ali is an overly emotional man, and one who cannot control his actions. But with his management of his boxing game and schedule, and his ability to beat others in the ring with an unemotional, calculating, and orthodox boxing style, one could say otherwise. The multitude of contradicting messages in this film, make the filmmakers' message unclear and befuddled. There are also many scenes of dialogue with Ali, in which he is shown to sport a cold and un-rash attitude, which make his character undeveloped and lacking of a certain perspective. Another example of trying to keep true to history, is Ali's boxing style. While there is accuracy in showing Smith fighting with an orthodox style, due to the mundane-ness of it, being strategically timed jabs that wear the opponent down over time, contrast to powerful punches all over the place, mainstream audiences may feel that Ali is less of a champion than he really is. This historical realism brings down the emotional response of the audience. The filmmakers try to put in too much of the "docu" in docudrama, and seem to have forgotten that they had to make this logical as a story. Despite the many different facets of personality in a person, due to the film being a story, they should have explored one main aspect of Ali's character, and shown how it has affected his life. Smith's portrayal of the character is true to the real Champ, but it's historical realism bogs down the story, as it is more difficult to explore Ali's emotional journey. The events portrayed in this movie may be accurate, as is the attitude and character of Ali, but they don't communicate anything as a story.
All in all, however, unless you're a fan of Will Smith, or are really interested in this period of time for blacks in America, you should not watch this film. The action scenes are boring, most of the time Ali's just talking and unrealistically flirting, and though it fleshes out some parts of the racism, it's not worth spending two and a half hours watching it for just that.
Movie Review: superficial study of its subject
Summary: 3 Stars
"Ali" runs an impressive 157 minutes - yet we don't feel as if we know much more about Muhammad Ali THE PERSON at the end of the film than we did at the beginning. Sure, we may know more facts and details about his life than we did before but not about what really makes him TICK. Of course, any film that attempts to record the life of a man is, by necessity, going to have to pick and choose which of the many events of that life to leave in and which to throw out. Granted. But the cursory nature of the screenplay causes a serious problem for this film. The story picks up Ali's life in 1964, back when he was still known as Cassius Clay, de-throning Sonny Liston to become heavyweight-boxing champion of the world. The time in his life before this event is dealt with in elliptical fashion. We see virtually nothing about how he was raised, what his parents were like, what kind of values they instilled in him, what motivated him to become a boxer and, most importantly, what drew him so passionately to the creed espoused by the Nation of Islam. Without this crucial understanding of his formative years, the Ali we see in the film seems a very superficial version of the undoubtedly more complex real life figure. For all the screenplay's devotion to the minutiae of Ali's career as a boxer, his travels to Africa, his experiences with women, his world-famous bouts with Joe Frasier and George Foreman, the Ali of this film remains a frustrating enigma from first moment to last. Worse, he remains static as a character, never undergoing the kind of mental, emotional or psychological growth one would expect a biography to show us. Even his trademark egotism comes across as just a front for public consumption since he doesn't exhibit any undue arrogance in his dealings with those around him when he is out of the limelight. Perhaps that might be the point the film is trying to make, but if it is, it is never clearly or effectively exploited to any thematic or dramatic purpose.
That is not to say that the film does not provide some ancillary pleasures. Certainly, its strongest asset is its ability to recreate a fascinating time in world history. Since Ali's life seemed to touch on so many of the key events of that era - racism, Black Pride, the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. - his story actually becomes emblematic of the times in which he prospered. Director Michael Mann manages to capture the flavor of that moment in bold, telling strokes, in large crowd scenes and in glimpses of protest riots and the brutal slayings of unarmed men. Yet, when necessary, Mann proves himself the master of both understatement and subtlety, as in his almost indirect depiction of King's killing. In terms of their editing, the boxing scenes seem somehow less dynamic - and thereby perhaps a bit more realistic - than those in many other films on the subject.
Will Smith does an excellent job in bringing Ali to life, even if the script doesn't always provide him with the material he could have used to get at the core of the man's being. Jon Voight does an effective job under all the makeup impersonating the inimitable Howard Cosell, yet, here too, we are never really shown just how this obviously symbiotic relationship between the boxer and the sportscaster ever came to develop. It is crucial details like these which seem to be missing all throughout the movie. Thus, despite the wonderful time capsule aspect of the film, "Ali" emerges as a disappointingly superficial study of its subject.
For whatever reason, the lives of boxers remain prime grist for the moviemaking mill. In just the last few years alone, we have had films made about both "Hurricane" Carter and Muhammad Ali. My only question is this: can "The Mike Tyson Story" be far behind?