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| Will
Smith, Jon Voight, Mario Van Peebles, Ron Silver |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Muhammad Ali (Will Smith):
I ain't draft dodging. I ain't burning no flag. I ain't running
to Canada. I'm staying right here. You want to send me to jail?
Fine, you go right ahead. I've been in jail for 400 years. I could
be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain't going no 10,000 miles to help
murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I'll die right
here, right now, fightin' you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not
no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want
freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when
I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You
won't even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights
and my religious beliefs. You won't even stand up for my right here
at home.
The life of heavyweight boxing champion
Muhammad Ali, from winning the world championship through to his
momentous reclaiming of his title in Zaire.
 Movies
made by one-man production company Michael Mann, who usually writes, directs
and produces all of his films, are always something to look forward to. Throughout
his filmmaking career, he has sustained a remarkable level of thematic
interest and a polished, consistent visual style that has set his pictures
apart. But having reached the high point of The Insider a few years
ago, his latest picture Ali finds him stuggling to maintain the firm
grasp of his subject matter that has been his strong point in earlier features.
Working as a director-for-hire in a project with a long and problematic history,
he brings the fight scenes to impressive life, delivering probably the
finest boxing scenes ever filmed. But in dramatizing this living legend's life,
Mann has clearly had to tread too carefully, resulting in a flat and overblown
biopic.
Much of the blame must go to Will Smith, who was brave enough to attempt the
impossible by stepping into the shoes of the most charismatic and physically
robust sports legend of the past century. But his attempts to show us Ali's
inner life results in little more than a lot of pouting and drooping eyelids.
Even when mouthing the famous one-liners and mimicking Ali's best-known interviews,
the famous comedian never convinces as anything but Will Smith, making one
pine for the electricity and buoyant exuberance of the real Ali. The fight
scenes, which are long and fairly plentiful, do make up for some of the general
sense of riskless impersonation. But we would advise spending an evening with
a documentary like When We Were Kings, which features the real thing rather
than an unilluminating wax museum copy. |
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A bare-bones DVD has appeared for Region
1. The Region 2 version available in the UK is a two-disc set, with
a bare handful of promotional extras on the second disc and both
Dolby Digital and DTS audio for the film. The Dutch Region 2 version
comes as a single disc, also with both Dolby Ditigal and DTS mixes
and with a half-hour promotional featurette on-board. The Dutch
Region 2 release served as the basis for this review.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. The transfer is
solid without being particularly impressive: dark shots do exhibit
some mildly distracting grain as well as occasional minor video
noise.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix is also good, but feels a little underdeveloped.
The mix is strongly focused on the front channels, with the surround
channels springing into action only during the impressive fight scenes.
As a large sticker on the box proudly proclaims, this release also
carries a DTS audio mix, but it has no real added value as it is
wholly indistinguishable from the Dolby Digital track, only mastered
slightly louder.
Sadly, the only real extra included here
is the disappointingly shallow featurette that runs nearly half
an hour but includes little more than the standard collection of
promotional interviews together with some behind-the-scenes footage. The
theatrical trailer is the only other extra.The main menu screen is nicely animated with
a subtle fade-in to the title logo and nicely laid-out navigation
options.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
December 13, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Ali.
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