Muhammad Ali - The Greatest

Labelled by most (and himself) as the greatest boxer ever, Muhammad Ali had possibly one of the most amazing boxing careers ever recorded. Controversy seemed to follow him, whether it be in or out of the ring, and although he could never bite an ear like Mike Tyson could, his 3 year ban from professional boxing definitely created a stir at the time. His confidence (or some would say arrogance) landed him in great strife, especially with the governments of the time. However his great way with words, legions of fans, and his sheer ability to box kept him battling on for a career of over 21 years.

This DVD is a great biographical film that follows the entirety of his career and even details how he got into the ring in the first place. From his home town gym and his amateur bouts where he was known as Casius Clay, to Olympic gold medal glory, and the champion now known as Muhammad Ali, this disc covers it all, without ever losing the attention of the viewer.

The video is a bit of a disappointment. Presented in full frame, and not widescreen enhanced, the video looks pretty lack-lustre and doesn’t appear to have been worked on at all. Unlike a lot of other old material that has been re-released recently, this film hasn’t been digitally touched at all. The material contains footage from right through his 21 year career (1960 to 1981) such that the quality of each segment varies greatly.

The disc appears to have been put together in around 1992, so that some of the more recent interviews look reasonable, but still nothing special. The footage seems to have aged well considering its age, but as stated above, lacks any signs of being spruced up. Grain is a huge problem, even in the most recent footage. The video also suffers from some terrible telecine wobbles in certain scenes, and some pretty average shadow detail. Overall, considering its vintage (over forty years old), this is about as good as it gets for Muhammad Ali fans at the moment. Maybe we could cross our fingers and hope for a fully digitally restored version of this footage some day, but I doubt we’d ever be that lucky.

The audio on this disc is similar to the video, and comes to us about as good as it could be. Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 this soundtrack basically covers all that is really required. Obviously for this sort of documentary a 5.1 channel soundtrack would be useless. That stated, this soundtrack is clear, easy to hear, and does not appear to suffer from any audio-sync problems. The commentary is quite conclusive, even though it does sound dated and a bit tacky, but perhaps that’s just the commentators voice. Again, nothing smashing, but well fitting considering this style of biography.

Now this was a bit disapointing. The extras only include the television trailers for a few other discs recently released by the Visual Entertainment Group. Obviously more of a sales promotion than a thought out inclusion, and as such is disapointing.

Perhaps a more detailed chronological time line (as seen on the inside cover of the case) would have been a nice bonus, or a written biography. I'm sure 'The Greatest' deserves a bit more than a few shonky television trailers.

Modest he definitely wasn’t, but the greatest he was. This is not the first Muhammad Ali documentary to be released on DVD, and in comparison it stands up reasonably well. The video really could have been cleaned up a bit more, and some extras added, but overall, if you want a good disc to show off to the kids how great he was, than this is a great choice. A definite must for boxing all Muhammad Ali fans.