Miami Vice

Okay, so I meant to have this done days ago, but things have been crazy this week. We had our annual meeting at work so there was a lot of prep for that, and of course my boss was out of state for training all week so I was on my own (as a side note, since the meeting ran all day Friday and all day Saturday (including all evening for a formal dinner), I’m probably not going to get to a movie this weekend, so no review next week). But, I promised a Miami Vice review (and I did get to the theater to see it last weekend), so here we go.

Sadly, I was fairly disappointed when I walked out of the theater on this one, and after thinking it over and discussing it with one of my co-workers the following Monday (who caught the show right after the one I did), I was actually even more disappointed (which is partly why I had a hard time getting motivated to make time to write this review). This one really did not live up to the hype (of course, I'm sure that there are numerous fans of the film out there that will tell me I'm full of it, but hey, I never claimed this was anyone's opinion other than my own). Of course, considering that I heard rumors that they re-edited it at the last minute because test audiences didn’t respond favorably to it, I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I mean, let’s be honest, if you’re trying to make changes/corrections in the last hour because it didn’t come together right, it’s probably already too late.

So what didn’t I like about this movie? Well, I think the biggest problem with it was the story, and to a lesser extent, the direction (which is really too bad, as I’m a big fan of most of Michael Mann’s previous films). The movie just felt way too disjointed, and just never really came together for me. I tried to get into the story, and just couldn’t. For one thing, they just jump right into things, which is fine up to a point, since I think you can assume most of the audience are at least familiar with (if not fans of) the original show, so it’s not like you need to introduce the characters or establish backgrounds or anything. But it would still have been nice to be eased into the storyline a little bit as opposed to being dropped right into it. It would also have been nice if the movie had actually taken place in Miami (since it’s in the title, after all). Instead, large parts of it take place in Central America and Cuba.

One of the reasons I heard for why they re-edited the movie was that test audiences didn’t feel it captured the spirit of the original show, and I have to say that the final product didn’t, either. For one thing, the music just wasn’t there, which I think is a big deal considering just how much an integral part of the TV show the music always was. Also, the movie is much darker and grittier and just lacked a lot of what made the original show so much fun to watch. On the plus side, they did include the majority of the secondary characters from the show – Trudy, Gina, Switek, Zito, and Castillo are all there, which I thought was cool. Of course, as my co-worker pointed out, there was one important character missing, and that was Sonny’s alligator Elvis. How can you have a Miami Vice movie without Elvis in it???

As far as the acting goes, nobody did a great job. Jamie Foxx just never came across as Tubbs in my mind, and his performance was fairly flat throughout. And while I do have to say that Colin Farrell really reminded me of a young Don Johnson and I think he was perfect for the role, he still didn’t really give a standout performance. I don’t know if the script just didn’t give them much to work with, or if they just weren’t into their characters or what the deal was, but nobody really shined.

So all in all I have to say that this movie was a disappointment. If you’re a fan of Miami Vice the TV show, my suggestion to you would be to pick up the box sets on DVD, and save this movie for a cheap rental night.