Starring: Will Smith, Jon Voight, Jamie Foxx
Directed by: Michael Mann

What to say about Michael Mann's recently hyped movie biography of a man who has been called the most famous person in the world? During the promotions for this movie, I've even heard that Muhammad Ali has had more books published about him than Jesus himself.

Most likely this is one of the places where the movie falls apart. People know Muhammad Ali too well. We've seen tons of footage about him and read countless stories about him. Just a picture of Muhammad Ali can mean so much. So well do we know Muhammad Ali, that seeing Will Smith doing his best Mohammed Ali impression is just not satisfying.

The other huge weakness of the movie is that there is no one underlying theme. It is presented as a series of events that happened over the course of the man's life. The events somehow seem only loosely connected and finally the movie is ended somewhat arbitrarily after Ali's triumph at the legendary Rumble in the Jungle fight against George Foreman.

The sad part is the acting was so good. Jamie Foxx and Jon Voight are amazing in their roles as Drew 'Bundini' Brown and Howard Cosell. Jamie Foxx was a lamentable character who I knew nothing about and as such was fascinating to watch even after 3 long hours. Will Smith, does a really, really good job of playing Muhammad Ali, but I believe that the Greatest of All Time is just too difficult to portray adequately. I mean, the man is still alive and there is footage of him doing and saying things in ways that only he can. Nice try Will, but no cigar this time.

In my opinion, they could have and should have cut out the entire beginning of the movie having to do with Ali's experience in the Nation of Islam. It just seemed to have little bearing on the rest of the movie. They just slapped some glasses on the most available homey (in this case Mario Van Peebles), named him Malcolm X and showed Will Smith crying after his assassination. Rough diss to Malcolm X, whose life was a 3 hour movie on its own (and a darn good one starring Denzel Washington). Also, rough diss to Ali, who's fascinating life has just been spliced into several acts of illicit love affairs, draft dodging and 3 boxing matches, then filled in with the tail end of Malcolm X's own extraordinary life.

If you want to hear and see more about Muhammad Ali, take my advice; there are movies and books galore all portraying this great man very well.

MastaCSG
Eight

DroopyMcC		Suffers from a severe case of 'meh'. Pointless, aimless, useless.
Six