Ali
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Michael Mann is a fluent, evocative filmmaker, and the movie is well written, expertly staged, and beautifully edited. [24 & 31 Dec 2001, p. 126]
63
USA TodayMike Clark
Ali is no disgrace, but it's not much of a performer, especially considering that it is one of the few hyped year-end releases that coulda been a contender. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
What keeps the movie from championship status is a sense that the filmmakers see Ali's social and political contributions as extra added attractions, ultimately less important than his greatness in the ring. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
For all Smith's dedication and Mann's abilities, Ali remains a figure too big for even the big screen to contain. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Just about everything Mann has chosen to present is valid, substantial and convincing, but by the end, the feeling persists that while certain essences have been grasped, only part of the story has been told. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Filled with vivid cameos and set to an infectious soul beat that effectively covers the underlying hum of calculated precision. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
Connects so often and so persuasively that its shortcomings -- the movie goes slack from time to time -- really don't amount to much. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Could there possibly be a worse time for a movie celebrating a draft-evader who embraces Islam? You wouldn't think so. Read full review
80
The New York TimesElvis Mitchell
We see the movie levitate when Ali and Brown chant, "Float like a butterfly," the slogan that takes on a different meaning in each context, starting off as hopeful and spry, finally becoming rueful and pointed. When the film pulls off moments like these, it's breathtaking -- a near great movie. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Ali, in short, is far from a seamless success, but it does get the big things right and it respects a subject who commands respect.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
It's not Smith's fault that the movie can't quite pry apart the man from the myth from the metaphor. The three may well be inseparable by now and, at this point in his history and ours, that's surely the way we prefer it. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Whatever the reason, the energy and hold-onto-your-seat excitement that Muhammad Ali brought to the sports world is oddly absent from this quite accomplished but finally distant film. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
It's one of the most ambitious biographical films ever made in this country, and one of the most unusual, moving and exciting. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
A thoughtful epic is both a rarity and an oxymoron. But that's what Ali is, and you can't help being drawn sympathetically into its hero's struggle for mastery of himself and his era.
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
While Smith gets into Ali's head and under his skin, the movie around him has more footwork than punch. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Mann's film is beautiful to watch. Cinematogrpaher Emmanuel Lubezki employs a washed-out, harshly lit style that makes everything look vaguely menacing and hyper-real, which is complemented by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke's Africanized score. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Perhaps no movie could do Muhammad Ali justice. But this overlong but sketchy biopic by Michael Mann, in which style repeatedly tramples substance, actually does the great man a disservice. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
For everything it gets right, Ali, following its superb first hour, begins to lose the vision, clarity, and structure necessary to bring its hero into full focus. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Manages to entertain, even though it stays on the surface. It fails to deliver the hoped-for knockout, but also avoids the pitfall of an early-round collapse. While not attaining the greatness of its subject, it rises to a level somewhere above mediocrity. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Ali is a bruiser, unwieldy in length and ambition. But Mann and Smith deliver this powerhouse with the urgency of a champ's left hook. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Overlong, entertaining, sense-assaulting drama. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Ali boasts a whole tribe of outstanding secondary performances, of which Jon Voight's Cosell, in an outrageous rug and several tons of pasty-face makeup, is easily the funniest. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Ali becomes less the story of a boxer than the story of one man hanging onto his soul. With so many wrong ways to dramatize that process, Mann's approach seems all the more right. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira Macdonald
Mann, as he showed two years ago in "The Insider," is a wonderfully idiosyncratic storyteller, sketching out a plot line with quick scenes, jumping into the middle of a story and letting us figure out who's who. Read full review
80
EmpireIan Freer
It may not scale the heights of Heat or The Insider, but this is riveting stuff and reconfirms Mann's status as a master of the medium. Read full review
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