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Michael Mann's Miami Vice is a film that, surprisingly, manages to stand out on its own from its source material. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it was directed by the creator of the original series, but given television-to-film adaptations' track records these days, it's really a nice surprise at how well this one turned out to be. It's tense, thrilling, and the performances by its leads don't dampen the quality of the film in the least.
Miami Vice features some of the most gorgeous cinematography in recent memory. Vibrant shots of the colorful Miami landscape riddle the film, and the environments that serve as the backdrops to this story are quite beautiful to look at. Several scenes involving boat chases feature some gorgeously colorful shots of the Atlantic Ocean.
I felt that the film's story had a somewhat slow and uninteresting start, despite the thrilling boat chase at the beginning. I can't exactly say why, but something in the film just didn't click for me in the first half hour or so. But when Sonny and Ricardo infiltrate the drug cartel and start to build trust with Jose Yero, that was when things began to heat up, and the story actually managed to pick itself back up for me. As the story builds and builds in intensity, so did my interest, and the end result was far from disappointing to me.
Miami Vice is probably the best television adaptations there ever will be. I have seen enough of them to say that most of them fall completely flat when they try to stand out on their own from their series, especially films based on the old sit-coms from the 1960's. Perhaps there was too wide of a gap between the original series and its adaptation to make them decent endeavors, or perhaps comedy television series just don't make good film adaptations. Whatever the case, there's no doubt that Miami Vice tops them all. What starts out somewhat slow and dragging quickly jumps into full throttle and builds its own dramatic tension. It's another great addition into Michael Mann's filmography that proves that he is still one of the best filmmakers around today.