Miami Vice - Vol. 2 (DVD 2001)

Plot Shot : Vice cops Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs time-travel out of the 80's to solve crimes in modern day Miami. Well that's not really the plot but while the surroundings may have been updated Crockett's duds and hairdo are pure 80's cheese. Can a TV show from the 80's mean box office gold in the new millennium? Only Sonny Crockett's mullet knows for sure, oh yeah and me. My review ensues.

Re-View : I know what everyone reading this is saying, "Uhhhh 'Miami Vice' doesn't come out for a full month how the hell did you see it?". Well the answer is simple my friends. At the premiere (Editor's note : In a casino in Vegas, not the Hollywood premiere) for "X-Men 3" the luminary of the wonderful website The Void (http://fillthevoid.net) was invited to a sneak preview of "Miami Vice". They obviously knew who they were talking to because it's not like they were just picking people out of the crowd at random (Editor's notes : They were!). So Tuesday, May 30 I headed off to be the first person to see "Miami Vice". What we saw was not the finished version but as we were told a "work in progress" so my final idea of the film may either be better or worse (probably only slightly) than the final cut.

"Miami Vice" stars Jamie "I got an Oscar, bitch" Foxx and Colin "I've got a sex tape" Farrell as Vice Squad partners Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs. "Miami Vice" for those hiding in a cave or born in the 90's was a very popular TV show which ran from 1984 to 1989 and starred Don Johnson and some other dude (Phillip Michael Thomas). The series focused on the two cops who dressed like "Duran Duran" rejects that drove the hottest cars and got the hottest babes while solving crimes. So it was pretty much like a real-life version of "Scooby Doo" (kidding). The series was one of the first gritty cop dramas on TV, it combined tense action and sexuality years before Sipowicz flashed his first ass cheek on "NYPD Blue".

The innovation of "Miami Vice" the TV series was due to Executive Producer / Writer / Director Michael Mann. The first positive sign for a movie version of "Vice" was that Mann would serve as director. Unlike "Starsky and Hutch" or "The Mod Squad" an actual creator of the origin series was involved in production. Mann is a great action/drama director as evidenced by films like "Heat" and "Collateral".

"Miami Vice" stayed fairly true to the TV show despite the updated wardrobe, cars and environment to stay current, however the characters were tweaked a bit. Farrell looked rugged but smooth as Crockett and Foxx was more than intense enough to portray Tubbs. In the series there were moments of humor and both cops seemed to enjoy what they were doing. The movie had none of the above; both characters seemed to be pissed off throughout the entire flick. They seriously appeared to have swallowed large sticks and were having trouble passing them. Despite the departure from the characters in the series I did believe them as cops towing the line between good guys and baddies.

The plot surrounds a leak in an FBI sting which unfortunately doesn't serve the plot as much as to make one character meet another. The story isn't very well fleshed out as things just seem to happen at random without a logical impetus. However the plot isn't nearly as important as the action and as always Mann directs one hell of a shootout. His shaky cam gun-fights are among the most primo in the biz and he does not disappoint. The gun fights which bookend the flick