Ali: Critic Reviews

It's the boxer you enjoy, not the sluggish 15 rounds the filmmakers put him through.

Ali is a far more complex creature than this movie allows for.

It is well-intentioned, sketchy, sprawling and unremarkable. At two hours and 38 minutes, it is also long-winded and exhausting.

This could be the only movie we'll get on the fighter, and it's just not good enough.

You can almost see him thinking his way through his fights...

Brutal fight scenes and frank racial issues.

Mann vs. machine.

More than competently mounted, with a hollowness just discernible in its core... feels like the first draft of whatever film Michael Mann set out to make.

The challenge of dramatizing the celeb's life is only partially met nby Mann in this flawed biopic that narrowly focuses one one decade (1964-74), while gliding over Ali's private life and negletcing crucial aspects of his turbulent yet fascinating life.

Smith, who has a well-developed ego of his own, not only looks like the young Ali but also sounds like the brash Louisville Lip.

Smith's transformation is nothing less than astounding.

No matter how good Smith and the other actors are, they seem at times dwarfed by the movie itself.

Ali contains much information, lots of emotional depth, and a triumphant performance by Smith, but its dragging pace and tendency toward digression often seem to work against its good intentions.

Mann has emerged with only a few cuts and bruises, while Smith, to paraphrase his character, hasn't a mark.

Mann's Ali is too concerned with cramming all of the benchmarks of his career into three hours to take the time to understand the true joy and compassion of the man.

Michael Mann reminds us why Muhammad Ali was the greatest -- inside and outside the ring -- in 2001's best film.

A 154-minute film that is both too much and not enough -- too much boxing, too many hours to sit, and too few connections.

Exhilarating, stylish, intelligent historical drama.

Mann gets most of the basics right but doesn't quite capture Ali's soul or spiritual growth and commitment.

The film gives Ali his due by refusing to idealize him or to gloss over his failings.

Michael Mann's Muhammad Ali film is not only a terrific biography of one of the 20th century's most important sports figures, it could well be the finest boxing movie ever made.

A clothesline rundown of Muhammed Ali's life...so preoccupied with realism, it neglects to have a thesis.

Full of abstractions that are sometimes distractions... the film's structured schizophrenia, if occasionally wayward, still bears some undeniably tremendous fruit.

Definitely worth seeing because of exciting scenes with Smith and Voight sparring verbally as Ali and Cossell.

...ultimately more admirable than enjoyable