Ali

Michael Mann's latest blockbuster, Ali, leaves a lot to be desired. Will Smith is brilliant in his portrayal of Muhammed Ali, and may even bring home the Oscar. The fight scenes are entertaining, well-directed, but a little drawn out. The directional style - fly-on-the-wall, cameras shaking, strategic blurred objects in the foreground - is innovative and well appreciated (his previous movie, The Insider, was quite similar). What most bothered me about Ali though, was the presumptions that it made regarding the audiences' understanding of modern American history. As an outsider who has only been exposed to American history through movies and documentaries, I was frustrated by the brief encounters that Ali had with characters like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. It was also difficult to determine the relative timing of certain events. The movie spanned a ten year period in Ali's life (1964 - 1974, I think), but it was unclear whether some adjacent scenes occurred on the same day, or were actually separated by weeks or months.

Rating: 6 out of 10. If you haven't seen it yet, wait 'til it comes out at the video store.