Thehibikiew Not even bad in a good way

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

classicsoncall It should probably be a given that real life sports celebrities should never depict themselves in stories about their own life. Baseball star Jackie Robinson was called upon to do the same thing in a 1950 movie about his career up till then - "The Jackie Robinson Story". Quite unexpectedly, Robinson displayed a surprising lack of charisma portraying himself, no doubt due to the fact that he was probably very self conscious appearing on screen. The same can't be said of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali of course. I don't think anyone could ever accuse him of being camera shy, but this picture simply doesn't do the former champ justice.I say this with the hindsight of having grown up with Clay/Ali's name in the headlines virtually non-stop from the time he became a heavyweight contender and handed Sonny Liston that stunning defeat to become World Champion on February 25th, 1964. From that point on, the colorful boxer maintained a ubiquitous presence on front pages of the nation's newspapers with his prophetic poetry and outsized ego. The story here does touch on all that, with a whirlwind overview of his troubles with the government and the matches that brought him his second world title at the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Kinshasa, Zaire against a formidable George Foreman.Notably absent from this biopic, and one I can't quite understand, was the omission of legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell, who followed Ali's career closely and became a close friend. With other members of Ali's inner circle portrayed by actors like Ernest Borgnine, John Marley and Lloyd Haines, Cosell's absence stuck out like a sore thumb for this viewer.One thing that the picture depicted that I was never aware of was the business with the young Clay throwing away his Olympic gold medal over a racial grievance. I can't imagine how that ever got by me, and so I questioned it's accuracy while watching the picture. An internet search revealed a story about someone finding the medal in the Ohio River some fifty four years later on June 21, 2014, thereby putting to rest any concerns that the story was fabricated by the loquacious Ali as a publicity stunt when it was revealed for the first time.Die hard Muhammad Ali fans will probably want to tune into this story, but on the flip side, die hard fans won't learn anything new, so the novelty would be in seeing Ali portray himself as a young man on his climb to becoming 'The Greatest'. Unlikely as it may seem, the 2001 film "Ali" starring Will Smith as the legendary champ is more inspirational than this one, and comes recommended for fans of the boxer and the man.

James Byrne THE GREATEST is a lamentable attempt to chronicle the tumultuous life and career of self-proclaimed 'Greatest boxer of all-time', Muhammad Ali, between the fourteen year period of his 1960 olympic success and regaining the world title against George Foreman in 1974. This flat, boring and unrealistic mess fails in every department, it doesn't entertain the movie fan, or enlighten the boxing aficionado. Ali plays himself - and doesn't do a very good job of it. The spontaneity, charisma, energy and humour that Ali displayed in his televised real life press conferences is sadly missing from his screen performance. What we get is a subdued, below-par Ali, sometimes mumbling and slurring his lines, making hard work of Ring Lardner's lackadaisical script and the inept direction of Tom Gries. James Earl Jones, who has a very brief cameo as Malcolm X, summed up Ali's acting ability with succinct honesty: 'Given his own words, he was a great performer, but given somebody else's words there was a self-consciousness that he was unable to overcome. Ali wasn't a great craftsman in the art of acting'.Jones doesn't come out of this movie with much credit either. He's much too bulky and aged to convince as the dynamic Malcolm X. The only really good performance comes from Ben Johnson as the head of the syndicate who sponsor Ali after his olympic triumph. Johnson once starred in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, in which a world heavyweight boxing champion, Primo Carnera, spars with a gorilla, the irony of which was not lost on me as I viewed this movie - given Ali's nickname for his bitter ring rival Joe Frazier.In between the Acting-By-Numbers sequences, clips of Ali's real fights are shown. Grainy b/w footage of Ali battering Lamar Clark, Archie Moore and Willie Besmanoff, plus a montage in colour of his comeback bouts against Buster Mathis, George Chuvalo, Jerry Quarry, Floyd Patterson, Bob Foster, Joe Bugner and Ken Norton. What I found interesting was seeing his old amateur foe and gym-mate Jimmy Ellis once again sparring with Ali just before the second Norton fight. Ellis was one of the very few boxers to beat Ali as an amateur, in 1958 at Louisville.There is a dedication at the end of the movie to director Tom Gries, who sadly died immediately after filming was completed. For a far better tribute to Gries talent, see the great Charlton Heston western WILL PENNY.

Joseph P. Ulibas 9?¬9?est (1977) was a bio-pic that starred Muhammed Ali as himself. This film was based upon a biography that was titled the same as the movie. Who else could portray the "Greatest of All Time" other than the man himself. The movie follows Ali from when he was known as Cassius Clay, winning the boxing gold medal, winning the World's Heavyweight Boxing title from Sonny Liston, refusing to be inducted into the military because of his deep religious beliefs and so on. How far does the film go into his life? You'll have to find out when you watch THE GREATEST!!I felt that Ali did a good job of portraying himself. I can't see any other person being able of doing the job. ALI, the movie just didn't do the man justice. It was filled with a lot of flaws and omissions. THE GREATEST may not be the best movie around, but if you want to see the man in all of his glory then you have to watch this movie. It was a real hoot to see Ali running his famous "Louisville Lip" and it was also nice to see Ali's inner circle of friends and confidants live and up close. I enjoyed this film much more than the overrated ALI.Recommended for boxing fans.

vchimpanzee I said several months ago that no one could play Ali except Ali. I was right. Muhammad Ali does a magnificent job playing himself in this movie. Maybe he's no actor, but in this case he accomplished what he set out to do, and he had several really effective scenes, such as when he explained why he didn't want to go to Vietnam, and the scene where Clay demanded that he no longer be called by that slave name.This was the third film (as opposed to documentary) that I saw on the life of the great boxer. David Ramsey did an okay job in the first one, and Will Smith tried his best but didn't quite capture the champ as only the champ could. Smith may have been the best actor out of the three, and certainly his film was the best.Chip McAllister made young Cassius Clay too much of a clown. He was okay, I guess, but the portrayal of the character improved dramatically at one point, and I also noticed the actor looked so much more like Clay. That's when I remembered: Ali himself was playing the character.Ernest Borgnine did a capable job as Ali's trainer, but this was not one of his best performances. James Earl Jones did a fine job as Malcolm X, brief as the performance was.I learned a few new details about Ali's life I didn't know before. I also found out that 'The Greatest Love of All' was written long before Whitney Houston made it a hit. The main reason for watching this movie was Ali himself. He was the greatest.