Video quality depends on what you’re looking for. If crisp, clean, and clear are your keys, you’ll find Miami Vice unwatchable. The grain is intentional, littering nearly all scenes shot at night, while obscuring any if not all of the fine detail. Daytime shots are stunning in their color and clarity, color reproduction is remarkable, while black levels are some of the best on the format to date.

If you’re looking for an accurate representation of the director’s vision, then this is a disc worth searching for. The added resolution brings the added noise to the front, instead of smashing it all together on the standard DVD. The above mentioned black levels are also retained better in HD.

Vice is almost entirely dialogue driven. When it has a chance, there’s nice work for the LFE channel to push an explosion. It’s a monumental disappointment to finally have an action sequence to find the rear channels completely inactive. The closing action set piece is nearly muted.

Extras are spread across both sides of this combo disc from Universal. The HD-DVD sides contains an unrated cut with a little extra nudity and not much else. The annoying U-Control feature contains extras that can only be viewed while you’re watching the movie via picture-in-picture, and only at the exact moment in the film. The majority are simple stills.

A bland commentary from Michael Mann discusses changes made to the unrated edition, including longwinded remarks about a boat race at the start. Extras continue on the SD-DVD side feature a nice piece on actual undercover work which runs for 13 minutes. Extras finish with a short piece on the shooting locales called Miami and Beyond.

Digitally adding in video flaws for a different feel or look is fine. In this example however, Mann has completely went overboard. You lose sight of the characters and focus on the annoyance of the weak attempt at creating atmosphere. It’s also jarring the first time to the point where it looks like something is wrong with the disc.