The first time we really see Will Smith as Muhammad Ali in the 2001 biopic bearing the boxer’s name, it’s at a press conference.
Ali, then still going by his given name of Cassius Clay, has arrived to weigh in — in multiple respects — before his title match against the heavyweight champion, Sonny Liston . Smith doesn’t look or sound exactly like the man he’s playing, but he gets the puckish adversarial spirit, the born-entertainer braggadocio, down cold. This is the Muhammad Ali of legend, throwing jabs of rhyming, musical trash talk before letting his fists do the talking for him in the ring.
Recommended Videos You could call Ali an early attempt to deliberately reshape his reputation. It was, after all, the film that landed Smith his first Oscar nomination , and also the moment that the actor began alternating the mega-budget blockbusters on his resume with hefty dramatic roles.
Mann and co-writers Eric Roth, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson structure the story around a handful of iconic bouts, beginning with the title fight against Liston and ending with the Rumble in the Jungle, his famous 1974 face-off against George Foreman in Zaire. The boxing matches are more elegant than brutal. They cut often to Smith’s feet, emphasizing Ali’s light step. He’s like a dancer in the ring, maneuvering around the brute force of his opponents.
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