Miami Vice Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)July 26th, 2006
MIAMI VICE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2
Zzzzzz. Utterly lifeless, MIAMI VICE is a film to be endured rather than enjoyed. And it's as cinematically appealing as an old, washed out videotape. Think of it as the anti-"CSI Miami," which bursts with lush colors and crisp images. In contrast, MIAMI VICE is just flat ugly, which might be tolerable if the script and acting weren't so incredibly boring.
Writer and director Michael Mann succeeds, as he did in ALI, only in wasting our time -- and lots of it in this two-hour-plus turkey.
Even if Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are called Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett and Det. Ricardo Tubbs, the characters are as generic a pair of buddy cops as they come. In this emotionfree drama and actionless actioner, the acting is as bland as it comes, with the characters looking so stoic that they could be statues. It's also devoid of any much needed humor, taking itself way too seriously.
Remember how much fun the TV series was? Well, this movie is as dull and dreary as the television show was enjoyable. This plodding movie is filled with one meaningless scene after another. They throw in numerous sex scenes, but these unerotic moments are perfunctory and brief. If sex is really this boring, abstinence would be a much bigger hit in the world.
The lines are mumbled and whispered, so that most of them become unintelligible. This is likely a good thing, since the dialog one does hear is pretty awful. As Isabella, the story's love interest, Gong Li manages to completely garble almost everything that comes out of her mouth.
The plot is actually simple, but the movie makes it ridiculously complicated. Crockett and Tubbs go undercover for the FBI because the feds have a mole in their midst. The promised tracking down of the mole is one of many parts of the storyline which is started and promptly abandoned. The group that our fearless duo tries to bust is a ring so large that half of mankind appears to be in it. This Equal Opportunity gang, with every ethnic group represented, is into everything but trading fake Bennie Babies over EBay. Name a drug or a gun, and they're dealing it.
This obvious candidate for worst-of-the-year lists moves at a snail's pace. The ending action set piece is a disaster, leaving viewers unsure about who is shooting whom. But compared to the rest of the picture, it is the only part with any energy in it. Most of the movie will have viewers waiting for it to finally get started. Only in this ending firefight does the movie even come close to getting in gear. Although a lot of people die in the film, nothing is more dead than the movie itself.
"Leave now. Time is luck," Isabella tells Sonny, repeating her favorite Chinese fortune. "You should just get out," he replies to her in agreement. You should take their advice if you accidentally purchase a ticket to see the movie. Walk out. No, run out. Go home. Watch any episode of the old TV show, and you'll have ten -- nay, a thousand -- times more fun.
MIAMI VICE runs 2:12. It is rated R for "strong violence, language and some sexual content" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
Giving it just 1/2 of a *, my son Jeffrey, age 17, said the movie was absolutely horrible. He complained that there was no depth to the characters and almost no action in the movie. He thought it was in bad need of better dialog, more music, decent acting and a script that made sense.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, July 28, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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