Movie review time: "Miami Vice"

So, being all my own tonight - no kid, no wife - I went to see a movie. I really want to see Clerks 2, but strangely just didn't feel like it tonight. Instead I went to see "Miami Vice". I'm still not really sure why.

I guess the Vice would be pretty much what one would expect - an slightly updated version of the show, put on the big screen, and taking advantage of the fact they can show nudity and more violence than on TV. Especially since this movie was directed by Michael Mann, who produced the TV show.

Mann's style is generally pretty flashy, and he carries that to the hilt in this one. Fast, expensive cars, fast boats, pretty planes, and lots and lots of beautiful people. And big guns. As with Mann's last work, Collateral (which I loved), most of the movie is shot with digital. Go Michael! Viva le revolucion! Screw those bastards who say film looks better. Digital is the way of the future.

Unfortunately, the flash overwhelms the movie. You never give a shit about the characters, or really what's going on. The script is pretty weak. The story never goes anywhere, and there are more loose ends than you can shake a stick at. In most big-budget movies, I'd say they were setting up a sequel; here I think they were just sloppy in the writing. This lack of a decent story takes what could have been a good movie and drags it down to truly sub-par. I can't emphasize this enough; this movie is all visual and sound with no reason.

On one episode of Dinner for Five, Faizon Love complained about his experience "acting" in the shitfest Torque, which was directed by a former music video director. He said of music video directors, "All they know is Bentleys, ass, cut! Bentleys, ass, cut!"
Mann comes dangerously close to "Bentleys, ass, cut!" in this movie (in fact, there is a Bentley near the beginning of the movie).

One feature of the show Miami Vice was the music. In the show, the contemporary, popular music they used was almost a character in the show. It had that same level of importance. Mann knows music, he knows how to drive a scene with it, and he knows how to pander to his audience with it. This movie is no different. Using a soundtrack powered mainly by Moby, Mogwai, and Audioslave, he manipulates the scenes with sound and keeps your senses overwhelmed. Mann is obviously a fan of Audioslave; he used them to great effect in Collateral (the scene with Cruise riding in the back of the taxi while "Shadow of the Sun" plays was awesome). I am pretty sure there were some new Audioslave songs in Miami Vice, featured on the movie soundtrack before their eventual album release. Mann arranged the same thing for Collateral. As I am a big fan of Audioslave, this made me happy. I am listening to Audioslave very, very loud as I type this.

One of the big, memorable song features from the TV show was Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight". When I sat down in the theater, I wondered to myself, "Am I going to hear In the Air Tonight somewhere in this movie?"
Got all the way through the movie, no In the Air Tonight. Oh well. That was 20+ years ago, one couldn't expect him to feature it in a current, multi-million dollar movie. But then as the screen went black and the credits started...what's that I hear? In the Air Tonight! Not the original, sure, but it was still the seminal Miami Vice song. I failed to catch who did the cover, though. Too bad he couldn't work in Glenn Fry's "Smuggler's Blues", a song pretty much custom-written for Miami Vice. I think only my buddy Nate and I still like that song, anyway.

So to sum up: beautiful, flashy cinematography; beautiful, flashy cars, people, and music. No story to speak of. Save your money.

Mattbear out.