ALI PROVES HIS GREATNESS IN MESMERIZING `KINGS'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

The best movie of 1997, so far, is 23years old. And it ain't ``Star Wars.'' In fact, this is your first chance - if you didn't catch it's one-week, Oscar-qualifying run late last year - to see it.

``When We Were Kings'' was begun in 1974 as a kind of Afrocentric ``Woodstock.'' Documentarian Leon Gast went to Kinshasa, Zaire, to film the music festival that accompanied the legendary ``Rumble in the Jungle,'' the championship prize fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

But things quickly went awry. Foreman was injured in a preliminary sparring round, postponing the boxing match for six weeks. Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was footing the bill for the whole shebang, wouldn't let any of the principals leave the country until the fight happened. This had an understandably depressing effect on the accompanying music festival's ticket sales.

The bad news was that those ticket sales were supposed to pay for the completion of Gast's film. It has taken him more than two decades to scrape together the necessary funds on his own.

But the profoundly good news is that Gast was stuck in the heart of Africa with the most entertaining man on the planet for an extra six weeks. To watch ``When We Were Kings'' is to bask in the unadulterated greatness of Ali at his prime. Perhaps not physically (although the slightly over-the-hill champ proves no slouch in the ring once it's finally time to rumble), but certainly when his lightning wit connected with his agile mouth faster than any flurry of punches he's ever thrown.

It's astounding to see how different both Ali and Foreman were back then. What's happened to Ali is a tragedy that his verbal adroitness in this film magnifies to epic stature. And while he may be a beloved comeback sweetheart today, Foreman in '74 was surly, paranoid and the most fearsome fighter ever seen. He had already demolished Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, both of whom had previously taken the crown from Ali.

But the underdog challenger, inspired as much by the chance to fight Foreman as he was by the symbolic nature of the event's African setting, launched the greatest one-man propaganda blitz ever recorded.

Never shutting up, Ali pummeled Foreman, racism and tooth decay with equal ferocity, unleashing barrages of brilliant words for weeks. He was so tireless and cleverly persuasive, he reportedly convinced many Zaireans that Foreman was white. Mobutu's just lucky Ali didn't run for president in his spare time.

Indeed, Ali proves himself to be an excellent politician as well as a great athlete and stellar conversationalist. You see him making everyone eat out of his hand, from the tough-guy journalists who covered the fight (Norman Mailerand George Plimpton are among several observers, filmed in 1995 by Taylor Hackford, who offer great anecdotal insights into the whole marvelous fiasco) to the French-speaking schoolchildren who don't understand a word he says but lap up every syllable anyway.

Lots of the original music footage - James Brown, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba and more at their peaks - makes it into ``When We Were Kings,'' and the movie exploits the historical cachet that goes with some of the first public appearances of Don King's hair. We also learn just how difficult it is to stage an international media event in a Third World nation and get a sobering crash course in Mobutu's thuggish politics - more an issue than ever on the world stage today.

But most of all, we get Ali as we'll always want to remember him: a Force unto himself, mightier than the greatest work of fictional imagination. Oh yeah, and that Oscar-qualifying run paid off. ``When We Were Kings'' is nominated for Best Feature Documentary, although it hardly needs an Academy Award to prove itself a winner.

THE FACTS

The film: ``When We Were Kings'' (PG; violence).

The stars: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. King, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and Spike Lee.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Leon Gast. Produced by Gast, David Sonenberg and Taylor Hackford. Released by Gramercy Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: AMC Century 14, Century City; Magic Johnson Theatres, Baldwin Hills.

Our rating: Four Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Muhammad Ali trains for his fight against George Foreman in ``When We Were Kings.''