Muhammed Ali lived a full life. He won the Olympic gold medal, turned professional and won the championship belt at 22, engaged in a legal fight with the government in order to not fight in a war he does not believe it and lost his championship belt and his prime as a result, won the belt back once he got reinstated, fought all the top fighters in his era and had a number of memorable fights that will forever fall into boxing lore, and even after he retired, his subsequent diagnosis with Parkinson put a lot of attention on the disease. By all measures, his life is definitely made for the biopic treatment, and yet, somehow, Mann made one of the most uninteresting and boring biopics out there.
Honestly, Ali's life has so much material, that it would may have been better to make it two parts, or even a trilogy, but Mann and the studio made the choice to do it all in one movie. That means a lot of things, and maybe even important aspects in Ali's life, are taken out, and even though the movie is two-and-a-half hours long, it still feels rushed in parts. Ali's best battles are probably his trilogy of fights with Joe Frazier, but the first fight is largely glossed over, while the second is pretty much ignored, and the last one, the famous Thrilla in Manila, never made it on screen. Meanwhile, the focus is on the Liston and Foreman fights, and while those were worthy and important fights in Ali's career, they accounted for at least 40% of the movie's runtime, and that might not have been the best use of time.
I am also not sure Will Smith is the best casting choice either. The movie wants to show the duality of the man, as there is an onscreen persona that is pompous and full of arrogance designed to be larger than life, and a sensitive and thoughtful personal side that wants to advocate for larger causes. Unfortunately, even though Smith is able to capture the outer life, he looks rather confused, and at times even disinterested, when he has to tackle the inner life. Those personal aspects takes up a lot of the screentime too, so the pace slows significantly as a result, which takes the audience out of the movie.
Perhaps it is to show how Ali is lost, and even powerless, in the tidal wave of giant upheaval during his lifetime, but Mann never makes it explicit. He just shows glimpses of how Ali is manipulated by unsavory figures, but those are never resolved at all. Thus, the movie feels very incomplete, and at times, I even question why there needs to biopic if the questions are left unanswered, and the narrative is so reticent.
There is no other way to put it, but Ali is such a waste of potential. Worst of all, the boxing scenes are filmed poorly too, as I hated the sudden change of camera to a Go Pro style in the middle of fights, so I cannot even say it is a good boxing movie. I would not say never to watch it, because the details are accurate enough, but it will not be a priority.
5/10
I'll give you a hint: which of those two demographics was making the movies?
