O Maior de Todos

I have read some of the other reviews and their negative criticism of Ali's acting talents but the reality is Ali invented "hype" and "rapping" which both were reflected in this autobiographical film from his teenage years as the 1960 Boxing heavyweight Gold Medal winner through to his 1974 upset win of the heavy hitting George Foreman in Zaire, Africa.

Just like in all his incredible boxing matches this film packs a lot of punch in its.101 minutes of film run time. I wish people would look at what the film includes rather than what the film is lacking. Muhummad Ali was the greatest fighter and influential person of the 21st century. How can anyone say he is a bad actor when he is playing himself?

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.

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.

I loved Ali the fighter. I was his biggest fan. With that said, Muhammad wasn't very good in this film; playing himself! The only good thing about this movie are the real films of some of Ali's greatest boxing matches. The entire cast comes across as cartoonish, stereotyped, wooden and dull. Even Ali overplays himself and plays himself very badly. Forget this film and watch Ali's real boxing matches on dvd instead.

Despite having a rather poorly constructed story and not telling anything that fans of Muhamas Ali did not know; But it's even good, interesting, and fairly well built for a biography. Highly recommend.