This academy-award nominee tells the story of famed and prolific African- American boxer Muhammad Ali and how he rose to the ranks of fame and rose to the title as "The Greatest." The movie stars actor Will Smith, in which earned him a well-deserved Oscar Nomination for Best Actor. Will Smith stars as Muhammad Ali, and he is absolutely phenomenal. This actor spews charisma and charm as he ingeniously portrays the boxer as he was. In the movie, it’s hard not to forget that this is indeed Will Smith.

He does an excellent job with Ali’s accent and mannerisms that he makes it enjoyable to watch. Though, he doesn’t look a lot like him, it doesn’t matter; He pulls off the character excellently. The movie also stars Jon Voight as the famous sports announcer, Howard Cossell. Once again, his performance is great, and he is able to pull off Howard very well. Yet again, he doesn’t look very much like Cossell himself, but it remains irrelevant. The movie focuses on many monumental events in Ali’s life like his conversion to the Muslim religion, the changing of his name, and the crucifixion from the US he received after refusing to be drafted in the war at the time. The plot comes off with smoothly and will fill anyone in on Muhammad Ali and truly show you what made him a legend. He’s still the greatest, and this movie proves it.

The problem with this movie is that we only get a surface of the events that made Muhammad Ali. We never really get background information on the man himself when he was younger and barely ever learn about his relatives. The movie scatters Ali’s events about with gaps in the movie. We get to see all these amazing events dealing with Ali yet there’s never much emphasis on them; the movie says, “This is what happened, now let’s move on” never getting us, the viewer involved. The characters, though great all seem so one-dimensional at times. The direction is also very silly with sometimes shaky attempting to simulate the feel in the Ali fights, but comes off as amateurish. If these flaws had been dealt with from the get-go, “Ali” would have been a bonafide masterpiece.

A good if not very flawed bio pic about the greatest of all time featuring a phenomenal performance from title actor Will Smith.

[   Link to Us   |   FAQ   |   Top^   ]
All written reviews material and content are a copyright of Felix Vasquez Jr. and Cinema Crazed.
Content borrowed without written permission will not be permitted.

¤ ¤ ¤