The Movie
Based on past experience, I usually tend to be leery of movies that are remakes of earlier hit movies and especially of movies that attempt to capture the essence of a popular television show in a single longish episode. Most of these productions fall into one of three categories: a slavish copy of the original, which doesn't work because the original belongs in a past time; an attempt to update the characters and story, which doesn't work for much the same reason; or a "remake" in title only with essentially a different story and cast of characters, which is a cheat. A few fall under a fourth category. They actually capture the spirit of the original while appealing to contemporary audiences. Having watched all of the original Miami Vice back when it was the coolest program on television, I was intrigued to see just how well the movie version would stand up.
It probably helps this new Miami Vice that it was written and directed by Michael Mann, whose sensibility drove the original television series. All the elements are there: flashy camera work; vast surreal views of city, sea, and sky; very cool and very expensive boats, planes, and automobiles; characters that dwell just this side of caricature; and, of course a very driven rock score that drives the story forward. However, this directorial continuity may also have harmed the "unrated director's edition" that I viewed. At times, I felt the story begin to drag almost long enough to make me lose interest. I have to wonder if the included "footage not seen in theatres" is the cause. Is it wise to add back in footage originally excised, probably for good reason?
Increasingly over the past decade or two, moviemakers have shown an increasing reliance on elaborate special effects to compensate for otherwise weak story lines. Showing great restraint, Michael Mann has created a movie that is, overall, very low tech. Even in this surreal Miami, the action is low-key and realistic, with less of the overblown comic book feel that many contemporary directors seem compelled to create in their action films. There's a dryness about the action in Miami Vice that's more cool than hot, more of inevitability than chaos.
There's no doubt that, some twenty years later, this movie captures the spirit of the original television series. There are many similarities between the two, but perhaps as important are the differences in style, in cast of characters, in the general ambience of the story.
Both in number and in style or quality, the cast of characters has changed. Colin Farrell's Sonny Crockett seems world-weary in a way that Don Johnson's had never been. There was a carefree sense to the old Crockett that doesn't seem to exist in this new incarnation. Compared to the pretty, stylish, even slick Philip Michael Thomas character, Jamie Foxx presents Ricardo Tubbs as a hardened realist, a cynical down-to-earth undercover cop better fitted for true film noir than the trendy world in which the original character had lived. In spirit if not in name, some interesting characters from the original series are missing, especially James Edward Olmos' dour Lt. Castillo, never quite matched by Barry Shabaka Henley in this movie, and Elvis, Crockett's pet alligator. Elvis was a comedic set-piece in the original which might have helped save this movie from its mostly humourless ambience.
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