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(GARY PETERSON COLUMN FOR SUNDAY, JAN. 6)

The question was, ''Are you going to see 'Ali'?'' The knee-jerk answer
was, ''No.''
The reason being: Why? There's no way a two-hour movie compares to the
original, which played out against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of social
upheaval over the course of decades. That's a hopeless task in any event.
It is way beyond hopeless when the original is as complex, textured and
epic as the story of Muhammad Ali.
If you lived the original, if you heard the Sonny Liston fights on radio
as a child, if you followed the career on Wide World of Sports, if you
saw the by-play with Howard Cosell live, if you struggled to make sense
of the refusal to be inducted into the armed services and the resultant
three-year enforced hiatus from boxing, if you thrilled to the comeback,
if you sat transfixed during the three savage fights with Joe Frazier, if
you listened to the round-by-round bulletins from Zaire in your college
dorm room, if you saw the first Ali movie (with Ali in the starring
role), if you agonized over the slow fade and a career that lasted too
long, if you were shocked and saddened by the onset of Parkinson's
disease, what possible appeal could a movie hold?
But then you recognize this as being a short-sighted approach. The legend
of Ali remains powerfully attractive. It calls to you from across the
years. And so, yes, of course, you see the movie.
You even enjoy it, assuming you are willing to accept its limitations,
inherent and otherwise. And it is a film with limitations.
You will not be enlightened by writer/director Michael Mann's movie,
which focuses on a 10-year period that begins with Ali (then Cassius
Clay) defeating Liston to win the world heavyweight championship, and
ends with Ali defeating Foreman in Zaire to regain the title.
Ali's relationship with Malcom X, his religious conversion, his refusal
to accept induction at the height of the Vietnam war, they're all
documented. Unfortunately, they are never fully explained.
You get hints and glimpses, but never substantial context. Ali argues
with his father over his religious beliefs. He shuffles through four
marriages. Yet his feelings and motivations go relatively unexplored.
Cosell offers Ali advice and direction. To what extent was their
professional relationship a personal partnership?
The movie fails as a comprehensive historical record. Granted, a film has
to presume a certain amount of knowledge on the part of its audience.
However, it would be helpful to those who weren't there for the original
to know, for example, that in 1964 there was just one governing body in
boxing, and just one heavyweight championship.
That reality lends punch to the scene where it is suggested to Ali that
he can be a catalyst for social change. That would be a laughable notion
today, given the state of regulatory anarchy in which boxing exists.
Mann tries to bring clarity to Ali's role as a symbol for the
disaffected, both racial and political, but falls just short. Ali forced
you to take a stand way back when. You had to decide what you thought
about him, and that decision said everything about where you stood on
equal rights, the war, the generation gap, your tastes in music and
culture, everything. You couldn't be a mere spectator where he was
concerned. His persona was electric.

That aspect of his life never rises above the one-dimensional in the
movie. On the other hand, Mann makes Don King out to be a self-serving
creep, which is never a bad thing.
Stylistically, the film is a surpassing triumph. Will Smith nails Ali's
voice, his speech patterns and his impish quick wit. He is absolutely
convincing as a boxer. Jon Voight kills as Cosell.
The boxing scenes are expertly choreographed. Liston falls as he fell in
'64. Ali is decked by Frazier exactly as he was in '71. Foreman lurches
and drops precisely as he did in '74.
Dreamy slo-mo sequences and a haunting, relentless soundtrack give the
movie a lush, artistic feel. Watching the movie is a little like thumbing
through a book of photographs that document the cyclical rise-and-fall
patterns of Ali's life. You get a peek at this, a snippet of that; Ali
running through the streets, Ali with a babe in his arms, Ali drumming a
speed bag, Ali turning a press conference into riotous tour de farce.
It's evocative, and entertaining as all get-out, as was the original. If
it fails to match the original in scope and breadth, you simply have to
understand:
We aren't likely to see anything in our lifetime that does.
Contact Gary Peterson at gpeterson@cctimes.com.

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