Three-time world heavyweight champion, media superstar, African-American hero, American icon. Muhammad Ali is all these things, but for many Americans unsettled by the turbulence of the 1960s, he was also something else: a threat. Like his early friend Malcolm X, Ali was defiant, strong, Muslim and black. And in some quarters, Ali's refusal to heed his Vietnam-era induction order branded him an unpatriotic draft dodger. Director Michael Mann's reverential biopic attempts to resurrect this other Ali, focusing on ten crucial years between the boxer's first heavyweight title victory in 1964 and 1974's "Rumble in the Jungle," when Ali wrested the title back from George Foreman. After a stirring opening montage that effectively conveys some of the joy (Sam Cooke) and pain (Emmett Till) of African-American life during the early 1960s, 22-year-old Cassius Clay Jr. (Will Smith) enters the ring, dances around the hulking Sonny Liston (Michael Bentt) and wins the heavyweight title in six rounds. He announces that he's the "Greatest Boxer in the World," and a few days later publicly acknowledges his commitment to the Nation of Islam, renounces the "slave name" Cassius Clay, and becomes Muhammad Ali. The film then gets personal: Mann explores Ali's deep devotion to Islam, which led him to turn his back on both Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles) and his flashy first wife (Jada Pinkett-Smith), a convert who refused to dress the part. Convicted of draft evasion in 1967, Ali is in peak condition but out on bail and out of work, forbidden to fight in the U.S. and threatened with a five-year prison sentence. Ali turns to good friend Howard Cosell (Jon Voight, unrecognizable under makeup and hairpiece) and, surprisingly, Joe Frazier (James N. Toney), to help engineer a comeback that led all the way to the "Rumble" in Zaire, one of the most widely publicized bouts in history. The film's fight sequences are straightforward (none of RAGING BULL's moody expressionism here) and effectively convey Ali's agility and lightning speed; packing an additional 35 pounds of muscle, Smith certainly makes an impression — his own sense of humor and megawatt charisma help give a pretty good idea of what made Ali such a compelling personality. It's a brilliant impersonation; Smith gets Ali's speech patterns and Louisville accent exactly right, and astonishingly convincing facial prosthetics complete the transformation. But he never quite finds the man under the enormous image; those quintessential Mann moments, during which Ali is left alone to brood, feel disconcertingly blank. --Ken Fox
