Miami Vice - pretty nice

I saw Miami Vice - the 2006 movie - on-demand last night. I had heard mostly bad things about it - including from a few people who walked out of the thearter where it was playing earlier this year, because they found it boring.

I liked it. Certainly not a great movie, but I liked it. For the same reasons I enjoyed the original Miami Vice tv series back in the 1980s. Smooth ambience, great seamless mix of images and music - the dialogue almost doesn't matter, any more than it does in a music video.

And the plot was pretty good, with a couple of medium-good suprises. So was the acting. Jamie Foxx's haircut was laughable, but his acting as Tubbs was fine. So was Colin Farrell as Crockett. Maybe not as good Don Johnson in that role - but I'm not 100% sure Don Johnson was as good as what I remember of him on tv, either.

And the movie had Ciarian Hinds - one of my favorite actors after his superb Julius Caesar in HBO's Rome - playing an FBI chief, replete with an Al Pacino look and accent.

John Ortiz was a fine villain, and Li Gong looked and sounded good as Crockett's lover.

One thing I missed - Edward James Olmos as the Lieutenant - he was spectacular in the original tv series, the quiet powerful glue that held the characters and the stories together.

But hey, I'll see him on Battlestar Galactica as Admiral Adama tonight, so I'm not complaining...

Useful links:

Miami Vice (Unrated Director's Cut)

Miami Vice - Season One original tv series