Page 1 of Miami Vice - A Letdown? (possible spoilers)

Saw Miami Vice (in the cinema) yesterday. I thought it was a bit of a letdown. Brilliant plot overall, with superb acting - especially by Jamie Foxx. However,

SPOILER:
Sonny`s affair with the french lady Isabella was a bit too long drawn. Love interest in something which is essentially a cops/robbers movie is a bit of a letdown. Added to that - the mumbles in dialogue (which is quite incomprehensible at times - need subtitles to understand really) is not good for the movie too.

A good movie spoilt by overzealous storyline?

T¦M3CH4S3R

"I am worst at what I do the best, for this gift I feel blessed. I found it hard... it was hard to find. Oh well, Whatever! NEVERMIND"

As a long time Michael Mann fan I went to this movie thinking maybe he would be the only one that could pull this off. After all he did have attachment to the original series and I love nearly everything he has done before this. Unfortunately I left the theatre feeling somewhat disappointed. It`s not Michael Mann at his best that is for sure. I didn`t see any real character development from anyone. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx were good in their roles individually but there was not the development of them together that i would have liked to seen and lots and lots of jumbled dialogue. Anyways without the need to going to spoilers I would sume this movie up as just ok. Who knows maybe when the DVD comes out as a director`s cut the whole thing might make more sense as I know Michael Mann had to frantically edit/cut this to make release date.

I`ve not seen this, but I do have Mann`s last DVD - Collateral, and I (well, me and the missus) noticed mumbled dialogue in that too. Ended up having to put subs on for most of the movie.

Miami Vice is full of top class mumbling - it seems that Marlon Brando (circa 1980) was the dialogue coach as I could barely understand what was being said which made following the convoluted plot very difficult. It was a Michael Mann film so it looked great and the speedboat/airplane/car scenes were terrific but there was too much going on and nothing was actually concluded at the end. I`ve never seen an episode of the TV show so I`d no idea what to expect and have to conclude that the format suits a TV length episode better than a 140 minute feature. The word `underwhelmed` springs to mind.

David Beckett AKA wossname

I was disappointed in this too. Mumbled dialogue, very hard to follow at times as scenes just seemed to be cut in half in places (which may be explained by the reasons above) but I thought it was going to be much better.

I`d say 7/10 but it was the last half an hour which saved it, it was too boring most of the time and I didn`t feel anything for either of the characters. And how many scenes were covered with music but silence to everything else that was happening? Overused definitely imo

Decent soundtrack though

I thought it was brilliant, I got exactly what I expected from Mann doing a Miami Vice movie. Very faithful to the spirit of the show and a fitting update.

I loved that the opening isn`t resolved and the film just ends, because it lends that "just another day in the lives of..." factor that suits the tone of the film. And I never had a problem hearing anything, I suggest you ask your cinemas to update their sound system.

Did anyone else have a real problem with the picture quality due to it being shot on hi-def video and not film? I thought it had a real grainy quality as did Wendy Ide ion The Times who wrote:Quote:
Another major problem is that the cinematography, shot on high-definition digital video, appears grubby, grainy and crudely lit. It's quite an achievement in a film that reportedly cost in the region of $120 million, but Miami Vice looks cheap and nasty. It's almost as if Mann decided to release a pirated copy instead of the real thing. and gave it one star - review here.

David Beckett AKA wossname

Quote:
Did anyone else have a real problem with the picture quality due to it being shot on hi-def video and not film?

I must admit, there were a few shots in the film where it was either clearly under-lit or they hadn`t exposed it properly (gain/aperture and shutter speed are still factors in pro-digital cameras), a pretty unforgivable mistake given that all HD cameras have super sharp LCD screens, and I`m talking about £3000 cheap HD cameras, I haven`t actually got a clue what Miami Vice was shot with, other than an improvement on the "Viper" cam used on Collateral (probably A LOT more expensive than what I use). I would assume the camera would be 1080p and probably modified to be 24fps as opposed to 30 for NTSC and PAL (HD is always the same res, but apparently they`re still sticking to PAL/NTSC frame rates, so that`s 25p or 50i for PAL, and 30p and 60i for NTSC.

As a filmmaker, I can tell you straight off that digital is great, I`d never shoot on film now that HD is here. One of the great things about digital is the relative lack of light that you need COMPARED to film, but you still need light. The shots in Miami Vice that show serious grain happen mainly at the start of the film, with Alonso driving in the car, and the grainy shots are intercut with clean shots. I don`t think it`s intentional, but blown up on the big screen it does look like a pretty amatuer mistake, or perhaps just pushing the boundaries of the camera just a little too much. But 99% of the film looks f***ing fantastic and there are sequences here that really show off just how crisp, clean and beautiful HD can be.

This film is so f***ing cool, just saw it for a second time in the cinema.

Master-Class filmmaking.

Just got back from seeing this and I have to agree with Chewie, the film is awesome!

It looks fantastic (especially the plane flying scenes), it`s incredibly well-acted by everyone, the script is razor sharp and the music is perfectly suited to every single scene.

I didn`t have any trouble understanding the dialogue, and after hearing about how it ends abruptly I thought it did a good job of wrapping up most of the plot. The shoot out at the end is brilliantly executed... no one does gun fire like Michael Mann ;)

Plus you see a fair amount of boobage from Naomie Harris and Gong Li :D

One of the best films so far this year.