Miami Vice was distinctly unimpressive. Michael Mann got caught up with that thing he does, taking beautiful shots of beautiful scenery, and along the way… he seem to forget it was an action movie. Of the 132 minute film, only about 12 minutes is taken up with (admittedly quite good) action sequences.

Now, I normally criticise traditional action movies for having too many explosions and not enough character development etc., — am I being a bit of a hypocrite? No. Sadly, Vice doesn’t bother with normal characterisation either, at least not of Rico and Sonny as a pair, which, IIRC, was what was interesting about the original series. This humourless film builds each character up almost completely separately — and apart from moments when one says to the other “I trust you completely,” (or words to that effect) — the two actually barely speak to each other.

So – no explosions, no characterisation… what does the movie have? A few nice cars (and some less nice ones – was that a BMW? C’mon man, apply imagination!), an absurd mullet, brief moments of fantastic brutality… and that’s about it. Not the kind of film you get angry watching and leave, as individual components seem to sit well enough — but I was definitely bored well before the end…