I saw Miami Vice

[kribban]

First off:

People who talk in the movie theatre deserve to be badly beaten.
I was sitting in the room with a couple of teenagers who felt that talking, joking and laughing loudly was appropriate. It wasn't nearly as bad as when I saw Return of the King for the first time though when I actually walked out due to some movie goers' antics.


I was pleasantly surprised at the use of popular music, i.e. whole songs.
I had heard there were no MTV style montages, and while they weren't as many or as elaborate as in the show, there were some usage of music and I thought that was good.

I love that they used the Crockett theme! I wish they had used it more (this updated version of it), but I love that they used it.

I got a real charge out of the fact that they used the Burnett alias!

I thought that the violence was very cruel and graphic, and IMO, that's a good thing. You should't glamorize violence, and I'm glad they didn't. This was like in Oz where all you feel is that you should never be a criminal!

The feds were portrayed as a bit of a**h*les, although not as great a**h*les as they were in the tv series.

I thought the "Do you wanna f**k my partner?" line was funny, but then again, I always get a charge out of things like that.

The Isabella/Crockett lovestory was very real IMO. I got a sense that Crockett really did love her even though he was also trying to use her to succeed (what can I say, he's a sl*t for his job.)

The sex scenes were very good. IMO, Hollywood sex scenes often look like shampoo commercials. Here they looked like they really cared, and really were affected by the sex. (You hardly ever see orgasms on film, and that's a real turn on for me.)

I too thought that Tubbs' faked orgasm joke was funny, and that Trudy wanted him to fall asleep, ahem, in side of her was realistic. You don't see that level of candour much.

Trudy and Gina were updated characters and I liked them. I also thought that even though Zito and Switek don't have much screen time you immediately recognize the characters if you're a fan. I liked that.

Minor snags:

Crockett did not have a southern accent.
Nor did he have a son.

Castillo had the wrong race, but we'll just imagine his dad was latino and his mom was black. I thought the actor did a great job.

Some question marks:

No one ever says Ricardo's last name. I thought that was odd. No one ever says: Crockett and Tubbs.

When Isabella and Crockett talk in the safe house she never asks for his real name.

Finally I will say that the movie rocked and I hope there will be a sequel where we can get into the characters more. In this one there wasn't much character building like in Heat for instance. I want to see more interactions between the vice team.

I hope, and think, that this will be a re-start for the franchise. Back when the Lord of the Rings movies came out a lot of the fans were upset because they didn't feel the movies lived up to their expectations, but in the end, the films increased the booksales by 1000 % (!) and got a whole lot of people to read them who would never have done that otherwise.
All publicity is good publicity.