Lucas checks out 'Miami Vice'

"Yea you were in Jarhead, but I was in SWAT - I say I call the shots. Let's start with the Hotel Bar, have a quick gander then just crawl it from there."

Now, we haven't heard from him in a little while, but it seems like Mr. Lucas has been
tunneling his way into the odd test screening or two. Here Lucas attends a test
screening of possibly the movie that I'm most looking forward to in the remainder of the '06, MIAMI VICE. What's up everyone...? Mr. Lucas here... As always, I'll try to avoid spoilers. A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to check out Michael ann's "Miami Vice", which stars Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. I love all of Michael Mann's work and "Heat" is one of my favorite films, so I was looking forward to this movie. The version I saw was not the final cut; more than likely, Mann will trim a few scenes here and there. I have to say I was suprisingly underwhelmed. The movie starts off throwing you right into the action and leaves you slightly clueless as to what's going on for a little more than twenty minutes, which was something new, but I really was looking for more exposition in the film overall and there wasn't enough for me.

I thought the acting was solid all around. Colin Farrell's accent was a little spotty
at times but I got over it. Jamie Foxx was top notch as always and the rest of the cast did a good job. To me, the love stories that Sonny and Tubbs share with their female counterparts weren't believable enough for me to really get that emotional impact, and at one point, Farrell and Gong Li have two or three sex scenes in a row! I realize the
movie is called Miami Vice, but I felt Farrell and Gong Li's scenes were pretty flat.

If you go into this movie expecting action, then you'll be extremely dissappointed. This movie has very little action but when it does happen, Mann throws you right in the middle of it. At one point you could see an arm rip off in one of the gun battles and Mann doesn't shy away from it. But since this isn't the final version of the movie, I'll give Mann the benefit of the doubt. If you're going to see this, just lower your expectations, maybe the final cut of the movie will suprise you.