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HugeReviews.com Reviews:
Ali
by Scott Neufville
SUPER
I
enjoyed watching Michael Mann's boxing biography, Ali, about the
legendary but controversial heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. It's
always exciting to anticipate a Hollywood depiction of an already
familiar story, but, this fact may have hurt the film.
Mann's typically realistic recreations of the life and times of his
cinematic subjects made this film a satisfying watch for me. Like
Spielberg, when Mann (The Insider, Heat) recreates a moment in
history he really takes you there. And his casting of
Jamaican heavyweight boxer Michael Bentt as the late Sonny Liston,
heavyweight contender Charles Shufford as big George Foreman, and
cruiserweight contender James "lights out" Toney as Smokin Joe
Frazier was very thoughtful. But despite a funny and impressive
performance by Jamie Foxx as the eccentric Ali motivator Drew "Bundini"
Brown, I have to suddenly question Mann's judgement in casting because
frankly, Foxx looks and acts little like Brown compared to a number of
actors including Charles Dutton and Yaphet Kotto who resemble him a lot
more. Brown, like Foxx, was a very funny character but I
don't feel that alone is enough, and this actually brings us to Will
Smith.
I sincerely commend Smith on his effort to "re-interpret"
Muhammad Ali by bulking up in muscle, taking real punches in pre-shoot
training, and even tying his large ears behind his box-shaped Afro, (for
the record, Ali's afro did NOT look that bad!) but Smith does not do
enough justice to Ali's bigger than life persona.
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame Smith, he tried and even won deserved
awards for his efforts, I know it is a difficult feat. (Darius
McCrary came closest to pulling it off in the HBO film, "Only in
America.")
It's very hard, even for a rap artist like Smith, to imitate the volume
of Ali's voice, the spontaneity of his outbursts, and the aggressive awe
of his presence. But after watching the film, I discovered that
Smith lacks some of the basic physical attributes to even portray a
professional fighter for that matter. He's not a bad looking
guy, but that may ironically hurt him in portraying Ali though he too
was a handsome guy because unlike Smith, Ali had the basic physical
features of a fist fighter. (Darius McCrary had similar features
to Ali because he is himself a real boxer.)
Despite an impressive muscular physique, I was unable to see past
Smith's small mouth, thin neck, and puppy dog eyes. But again,
don't get me wrong, it was entertaining to see Smith try and the
authenticity and entertainment value of his fight scenes were above
average compared to the majority other boxing films. But my
main gripe with the film is probably consistent with that of other
boxing fans... I had seen this before. Despite an attempt to
throw fans off by putting documented real-life dialogue into the times
of places where they hadn't occurred, Ali was a story we (die
hard boxing fans) had all seen before; the time period between Ali's win
over Sonny Liston in 1964 to his victory over George Foreman in 1974.
For the casual fan or those not knowledgeable about the sport,
Ali's story will be amazing to watch on the big screen so I would
therefore recommend it which is also why I rate it a Super.
Mann does just enough to meticulously duplicate history, just enough to
let me see what I've seen before. But for a knowledgeable boxing fan it
was nothing new, except for seeing a soft-voiced Ali with a thin neck,
small mouth, and puppy dog eyes and a Drew Brown that didn't look
anything like Drew Brown.
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