Director Michael Mann returned to the well for his 2006 big-screen version of Miami Vice. This makes it an unusual TV-to-movie adaptation, as it actually involves someone key to the source material.

Mann served an executive producer for the original series. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help, as this flick becomes a stinker.

I found the following plot summary on IMDB composed by “Anonymous”: “After a tragic security breach in the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF), the FBI ask for help from the Miami authorities, who are not part of the compromised group. This assignment goes to Detectives James 'Sonny' Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs (Jamie Foxx).”

The overview continues: “Going undercover as offshore boat racers and outlaw smugglers ‘Sonny Burnett’ and ‘Rico Cooper’, they take on the narcotics trafficking network of the mysterious Archangel de Jesus Montoya-Londono (Luis Tosar) and his Cuban Chinese banker Isabella (Gong Li). The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially when Crockett falls for Isabella, and when there is an assault on Tubbs's loved ones.”

For my movie reviews, I almost always write my own plot summaries. So why did I use someone else’s for Miami Vice?

Because that was the only way I could figure to concisely synopsize this movie’s story – if it even has one.

In his review for the Washington Post, Stephen Hunter wrote that Vice veered between “’not a lot of plot’ and ‘lots and lots of plot’”. I’m inclined to favor the latter interpretation, as the film tries desperately to convince us that it contains a complex story, but instead it just confuses us.

About a third of the way through Vice, I felt a nearly irresistible urge to shout “what the heck is this movie about??!!” Mann packs the tale with so much nonsense that it becomes difficult to discern what story actually exists.

At its core, I think Vice just presents a basic drug cartel story that we’ve seen many times before. However, Mann attempts to convince us that we find more at work.

And that becomes the reason why the thing feels like such a mess. Mann takes a pretty straightforward story and buries it under layers of jargon and other irrelevant distractions to hide the movie’s inherent emptiness.

At one point we hear this actual line: “Somebody something’s gotta go somewhere somewhen”, and that piece of dialogue exemplifies the messiness of Vice. The flick suffers from mushy storytelling, as Mann rarely manages to make matters coherent.

The director also fails to explore the characters in a remotely satisfying way. Who are Crockett and Tubbs? What’s their deal, and why should we care about them?

I have no clue, for the movie tells us nothing about them and doesn’t develop them at all. Tubbs’ girlfriend Trudy (Naomie Harris) exists as nothing more than a plot device as well as an attempt to provoke cheap emotion.

The same goes for Crockett’s relationship with Isabella. These romantic entanglements pop up to convince us that the film has heart and depth, but instead they come across as tacked on and forgettable.

In truth, Vice really revolves facial hair and staring. In one of the few nods to the original TV show, Crockett sports Don Johnson-esque stubble throughout the flick, though his burly moustache offers a departure.

Tubbs goes for an odd King Tut form of goatee, while Montoya sports a look from the Lil’ Osama collection. Yero gets your standard greasy drug dealer look, and the others – mostly white supremacists – earn nothing more exotic than scruffy tufts of fur.

This all adds up to a lot of unshaven guys, though. I get the feeling the movie worries more about their grooming than anything else.

In addition, Mann constantly substitutes eye-work for actual story and character development. Crockett glares intently at Tubbs. Tubbs stares at Crockett.

Both of them gaze at their enemies and vice-versa. Women eyeball men, guys peer at dolls. It feels like one long stare-down contest, but without the same level of tension.

I appreciate the fact the movie doesn’t offer a kitschy spin on the source material, and I’d like to give Vice credit for the fact it doesn’t simply rehash the TV series. However, even that last note becomes a negative due to the relentless lack of pizzazz sported by this flick.

Sure, it looks garish and “80s” now, but the TV show turned into a sensation that created something unusual. The movie fails to present any form of impressive visuals.

Instead, it just looks cheap and crude and Mann’s obsession with verisimilitude doesn’t serve him well. Vice seems so jerky and ugly that it becomes almost unwatchable at times.

And that’d be a problem even if Miami Vice wasn’t such a mess in so many other ways. The TV series boasted a lot of potential to make an effective movie, but this isn’t a good representation of the source material. Mushy, muddled and murky, the film bores.

Note that I wrote the comments above as a reaction to my initial theatrical screening of Miami Vice, but this disc includes only an “unrated director’s cut”. It runs about five minutes longer than the 134-minute theatrical release.

This doesn’t mean Mann simply added five minutes to the original. He cut some parts from that version, so there’s more than five minutes of unique footage here.

I can’t provide my own impressions of the changes, as I honestly didn’t notice them. A cursory look around the Internet should locate lists of these alterations.

I can note that I thought the movie seemed more coherent during my second screening, but I can’t firmly state that this stems from changes done for the director’s cut. The story may have appeared more intelligible simply because I’d already seen it and knew the framework.

If I’d never seen the film at all, I’d have a better idea how the director’s cut works, but as it stands, I find it tough to assert that it truly fares better than the theatrical version. I do know that I thought it remained pretty boring, so while I understood the story better, I still didn’t enjoy it.

Miami Vice appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Despite some inherent challenges, this became a pretty solid presentation.

Sharpness generally appeared positive. Some shots displayed a mild amount of softness – largely due to some now-primitive digital cameras - but they were rare, so usually the movie seemed nicely defined and distinct.

Jagged edges and moiré effects presented no issues, and edge haloes remained absent. Print flaws didn’t appear, but note that a few scenes were shot in low light on a DV camera, so the artifacts visible resulted from the source material.

Vice featured a fairly typical orange/teal vibe, though occasional instances of more dynamic tones emerged. The disc reproduced the colors as expected.

Black levels seemed deep and dense, while shadow detail was appropriately thick much of the time. However, some shots appeared darker than expected and could be a little too opaque. Ultimately, Vice provided a reasonably good visual product.

As for the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Miami Vice, it presented a somewhat laid-back experience, as the soundfield didn’t do as much as expected to exploit its opportunities. The forward channels dominated and usually stayed with general ambience.

Stereo music was well developed, and the sides opened up the image to a positive degree. As anticipated, occasional violent scenes used the channels to the best advantage.

For the most part, the surrounds did little more than reinforce the ambiance. Occasionally they boasted better spread and involvement, but they seemed more passive than I expected from this sort of movie.

Audio quality was very good. Speech always sounded natural and concise, with no edginess or other issues.

Music was full and dynamic, while effects sounded rich and accurate. Bass response appeared deep and taut throughout the film. The lackluster soundfield knocked my grade down to a “B”.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the DVD version? The lossless audio added more range with a similar soundscape.

Visuals demonstrated the usual format-based improvements, though, with superior delineation and colors. The BD became a good upgrade over the DVD.

The Blu-ray mixes DVD extras along with a few unique materials, and we start with an audio commentary from director Michael Mann. He offers a running, screen-specific discussion that looks at story and characters, changes for the director’s cut, music, sets and locations, action and effects, real-life inspirations, the actors and their training, and his rationale for the movie adaptation.

Despite some flaws, Mann usually provides a good commentary. My main complaint comes from the fact that he often does little more than narrate the movie.

Because the story makes so little sense, this might not be a bad idea, but it still makes the track drag at times. Otherwise he gives us a pretty good level of insight. We learn nice notes about inspirations and technical areas in this generally useful piece.

A mix of featurettes follows. Miami Vice Undercover goes for 13 minutes, three seconds as we hear from Mann, former undercover agents Lorenzo Toledo and Alex Alonso, Miami-Dade Police Department’s Roy Rutland, DEA undercover agent “Towanda”, former federal undercover agent Robert Mazur, and actors Jamie Foxx, John Ortiz, Naomie Harris, Elizabeth Rodriguez, and Colin Farrell.

The show covers some basics of undercover work as well as the actors’ preparation for their roles as cops. At times the program feels a little more concerned with flash than substance, but it provides a competent and generally interesting view of this side of things. I especially like the tale – and video – of Farrell’s experiences during a “real” operation.

Miami and Beyond: Shooting on Location fills 10 minutes, one second and features Mann, Foxx, Farrell, director of photography Dion Beebe, security advisor Jim Milford, set decorator Jim Erickson, actors Barry Shabaka Henley and Justin Theroux and transportation captain Howard Bachrach.

“Beyond” follows South American location scouts plus other elements of the place the movie was filmed and some specific challenges. As with “Undercover”, the show comes across as a bit too promotional in nature, but it nonetheless conveys some interesting details and mostly satisfies.

Next we get the 12-minute, 42-second Visualizing Miami Vice. It includes Farrell, Theroux, Bachrach, Erickson, Mann, Beebe, aerial coordinator Craig Hosking, aerial photographer Hans Bjemo, special effects coordinator Bruce Steinheimer and stunt coordinator Artie Malesci.

This one looks at various issues such as set design, aerial photography, weapons and cinematography. It covers the material in a somewhat scattershot manner but digs into the elements with enough gusto to inform.

Under the same domain we find Three Behind the Scenes Featurettes. These cover “Gun Training” (2:43), “Haitian Hotel Camera Blocking” (2:54) and “Mojo Race” (4:25).

Each of these shows video footage from the various settings. In “Training”, we watch the actors learn how to handle their weapons, while “Blocking” offers shots of Mann as he works to figure out how he’ll shoot a specific scene.

Finally, “Race” gives us remarks from Beebe, supervising art director Seth Reed, and key grip Scott Robinson. They discuss the camera boat used for that sequence and then we watch it be filmed. All three provide some nice glimpses at the various aspects of the shoot.

Under U-Control, we get interactive elements new to the Blu-ray. These break into five domains.

“GPS” shows locations of different movie spots, while “Tech Specs” offers brief details about boats, cars, drugs, aircraft, drinks, food, and helicopters.

“Cast Bios” presents bare basics about Foxx, Farrell, Henley, Hines, Harris, Yero, Tosar, Theroux, Li, and Rodriguez, while “Production Photographs” delivers a handful of bland shots from the movie. All four of these feel superficial and not especially useful.

A more promising feature arrives with “Picture in Picture” – in theory, at least. We get some behind the scenes footage as well as featurette clips.

These would seem more useful if they didn’t also exist as the featurettes I already discussed. Because “PiP” simply repeats material we find elsewhere, it turns into a waste of time.

The cinematic Miami Vice avoids the expected kitschy treatment of its source material but it goes too far in the opposite direction. Obsessed with a gritty form of hyper-reality, the film rarely makes much sense and it fails to become a vivid, involving tale. The Blu-ray offers fairly good visuals and audio along with a decent array of bonus materials. Fans will be happy with the release but I can’t recommend this weak flick to others.

To rate this film visit the prior review of MIAMI VICE