Metascore
65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 37
  2. Negative: 3 out of 37
  1. 91
    It sheds the series' famous and influential pastel look and plunges its cast of villains and warriors into the 21st century.
  2. Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    90
    Mann has done something transformative with Farrell: The Irish actor has never had this much charisma and natural authority in a role, and as he navigates that gray area between Crockett's real identity and his fabricated one, revealing subtle fissures in the character's cocksure facade, he's fascinating to watch.
  3. 88
    If you're looking for a crime story that sizzles with action, sex and the visceral jolt of life on the edge, Miami Vice is the one.
  4. Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    88
    Miami Vice isn't an action flick but a neo-noir: tough, quiet, moody and hard.
  5. Sensual and scary, the movie is so visually textured you feel as though you're brushing against the screen.
  6. Right away in Miami Vice you know you're waist-deep in movieland.
  7. 83
    While it never approaches the richness and gravity of a great Mann film like "Heat," Miami Vice blurs the thin blue line to similar effect, and he features a couple of bravura setpieces, including a tense raid on an enemy hideout and a shootout with chaotic, you-are-there immediacy. If only all summer movies were this majestically slight.
  8. Reviewed by: Simon Braund
    80
    Bearing all the Mann hallmarks, this is visually enthralling, relentlessly stylish crime drama. A little too languorous for its own good at times, but still vastly superior entertainment.
  9. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    It's a sensational trip -- gorgeous, gaga.
  10. Mixing pop savvy with startling formal ambition, Mr. Mann transforms what is essentially a long, fairly predictable cop-show episode into a dazzling (and sometimes daft) Wagnerian spectacle.
  11. Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    80
    The world according to Mann is loud, dangerous, morally ambiguous, and more than a little greasy, but during the hours you spend there, there's nowhere you'd rather be.
  12. It's the set pieces that mark the film as something special: swirling crowds at a casino in the opening sequence, Trudy's ordeal by trailer trash, a climactic firefight that puts lightning in the shade. Very impure, and very impressive.
  13. 75
    This is more of a thinking man's action flick -- a small, intense film made on a giant canvas that finds Mann experimenting with and pushing at the boundaries of mainstream filmmaking.
  14. 75
    The movie is seriously sexy and seriously entertaining.
  15. 75
    The two best words to describe the 2006 motion picture Miami Vice are "stylish" and "intense."
  16. As entertaining as some of it is, is so cool that it's almost too cool. It takes the sin, and much of the juice, out of vice.
  17. 70
    Mann turns Miami Vice into an exploration of tone and mood, and he makes that enough.
  18. Without the ability to move off the mythic, without the emotional texture that "Heat" created, it is a film easier to admire than to get passionately involved with.
  19. Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
    70
    Unlike most TV-to-movie transitions, Mann returns to his roots and delivers what amounts to a slightly overblown episode, brimming with style and characteristically short on substance.
  20. 67
    It's got some great action sequences and is peppered with genuinely dazzling images. It's also subtly infused with Mann's favored themes of men-at-work and the high price of loyalty to duty. But it hasn't got sufficient meat to warrant its draggy length.
  21. As it turns out, the movie is still very much about two well-dressed undercover cops who strike sexy poses, express plenty of attitude and drive expensive cars and fast boats as pop music plays on the soundtrack and palm trees sway gently in the tropical night.
  22. Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    63
    It's refreshing to hear some old-fashioned percussive tension in service of a director who knows what he's doing. Even when the screenwriter is losing his way.
  23. Miami Vice is the last of the predicted summer blockbusters, and it delivers a reasonable amount of popcorn excitement. But if nostalgia for the TV show is the source of your interest, expect some disappointment.
  24. 63
    A combination of muddy sound mix and players with heavy accents (particularly Chinese superstar Gong, who seems to have learned her lines phonetically) renders large swaths of dialogue incomprehensible, but the details of what's being said and done don't really matter.
  25. Reviewed by: Ethan Alter
    63
    Just when the plot should start coming together, the pacing goes slack and the narrative gets bogged down in routine cop-movie clichés.
  26. Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    60
    Dark, detailed and only really gets going when the gunplay starts.
  27. 60
    It's about guns and sex and fast boats, and, baffling as it is at times, it's still the kind of brutal fantasy that many of us relish a great deal more than yet another aerated digital dream.
  28. A darker, grittier creature that, while benefiting considerably from Dion Beebe's HD cinematography, is a frustratingly inert affair -- a long and talky excursion that fails to engage the viewer from the outset.
  29. Miami Vice, the movie, is an atmospheric muddle, as gorgeous and unintelligible as raven-haired stunner Gong Li.
  30. It's the supporting players who stand out.
  31. 50
    Far from a disaster, but doesn't rank with Mann's best work.
  32. Reviewed by: David Ansen
    50
    It's filled with Mann's signature macho verisimilitude, but essentially it's the stuff of what, in saner fiscal times, would have been a B movie. Miami Vice delivers the thrills, atmosphere and romance it promises, but it doesn't resonate like major Mann.
  33. Farrell appears to be a rarity in undercover culture, a vice cop who goes on the lowdown as an Irish beatnik. Oh, that's a good disguise for South Beach. As for Foxx, he's still channeling Ray Charles through squinty eyes and a kind of shaky head. They have zero chemistry.
  34. Apart from a few sleek shots involving boats or helicopters, the action eventually devolves into a standard war-movie shootout.
  35. Reviewed by: Scott Bowles
    38
    All this movie has in common with its ancestor are speedboats, shotguns and drug-dealing Colombians.
  36. If you really must see Miami Vice (and you mustn't), buy a ticket to something better, then slip into "Vice" at the 95-minute mark and watch the last third of the movie. No one involved will profit by your curiosity, and you won't miss a thing of importance.
  37. 30
    Perhaps vice isn't what it used to be, or maybe Crockett and Tubbs just aren't all that interesting when removed from their appropriate time slot, but this may well be the dreariest and most monochromatic time you'll have at the movies all summer.
User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 241 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 125
  2. Negative: 48 out of 125
  1. 9
    From a narrative perspective, Miami Vice is average to below average. From a technical perspective, the film is perfection. The cinematography and action set pieces in this film are incredible, and shot with a style that only Michael Mann has. This isn't a movie for the mainstream audience, nor is it a straight-up action film as it was marketed. The story isn't quick in its pace or particularly compelling, but coming from someone who enjoys Michael Mann films because of the way he films, I loved this movie. Full Review »
  2. Are you kidding me? You remake Miami Vice and play it totally straight??? There's not a single moment of wink-at-the-camera humor, no recognizable references to the TV show (besides their names), no cameos... nothing! All you end up with is a listless, uninspired snooze-fest featuring some of the grainiest picture quality I've seen since the last time I watched an extended-play VHS tape. Atrocious handheld work makes the frame shake violently even during slow dialogue scenes, which is about 95% of this film. Michael Mann has always taken as much time as he wants to tell his stories, but at 134 minutes, Miami Vice is a bloated, boring, sleep-inducing nightmare that is nothing like Miami Vice I love... or the Michael Mann I love for that matter. Good grief!!! Full Review »
  3. Other than the names and setting, the movie incarnation of Miami Vice seems to have very little in common with the show that inspired it, which I imagine will disappoint anyone who checked it out hoping for some retro reminiscing. The acting was extremely stiff, the plot was uninteresting and extremely cliched, and the setting was far too modern. While there was a couple decent action scenes and some may like the "romances" - but you'd be better off watching some re-runs of the original series or better made action movies. Full Review »