He's got the swagger, he can shoot from the lip and after 12 months of bench pressing he's got the torso...but can Will Smith take on "The Greatest" - Muhammad Ali?

Smith wasn't sure he could himself (he admits turning down the role more than 30 times) but his portrayal - despite some qualifications - has to be hailed a triumph.

One of our first sightings of Ali/Smith isn't promising - Smith's (still) spindly legs poking out of a towelling robe...but as soon as he opens his mouth he's Ali.

It's 1964 and a precocious 22-year-old is squaring up to heavyweight champion Sonny Liston (Michael Bentt) in the weigh-in room.

If Ali isn't impressed with his opponent's record he certainly isn't impressed with his looks. "A man so ugly that the sweat runs backwards just to stay off his face."

His victory gives him the courage to voice his opinions...even if it's the last thing large sections of white America want to hear.

Firstly, he announces his admiration for civil rights campaigner Malcolm X (Mario Van Peebles), next he rejects Cassius Clay as a "slave name" and then he goes too far for the American establishment.

He refuses to fight in Vietnam - a stance that results in an all-white jury convicting him of draft evasion, a ruling which means he's barred from fighting.

Three years later the decision is overturned...freeing Ali to triumph against George Foreman in what is hailed as the best boxing bout ever - the "rumble in the jungle" in Zaire in 1974.

Together with Smith, director Michael Mann has crafted a compelling if over-long study of the phenomena that was Ali.

There is humour here too - Ali's exchanges with bewigged ABC commentator Howard Cosell ("You want some food for that thing!") lighten the tone when it's required.

But the overwhelming impression is that of an athlete whose intellectual and moral strength was the equal of his physical power - a combination that helped change the way a nation thought.

Tim Evans