Vice-like grip

Mrs Wife and I went to see Miami Vice at the cinema last night. I must admit that, when I first saw the trailer for the movie, I thought it looked crap. But, having read one or two favourable reviews, I decided to give it a shot.

I should have stuck with my gut instinct.

The movie wasn't COMPLETELY rubbish, just largely rubbish. I'll summarise as follows:

Good points

• Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx spent large portions of the movie riding around in an open top Ferrari.
• There were lots of noisy machine guns.
• Some of the close-ups of gun-inflicted injuries were disturbingly realistic.
• The soundtrack was great.

Bad points

• Colin Farrell may be a master swordsman, but he is terrible actor. His supposed Latino accent occasionally came dangerously close to slipping into his preferred Irish brogue, and his attempts at scenes where he is supposed to be 'troubled' just didn't work.
• There were several appalling sex scenes. Not quite as bad as in Showgirls, but getting pretty close.
• Gong Li isn't hot enough to play a leading lady.
• Too many of the actors spent their time mumbling, mistaking poor diction for acting dangerous, suspicious or South American (or all three).

I wasn't expecting too much from Farrell, but Jamie Foxx's performance was disappointing. Still, at least their won't be a sequel.

Unlike the Mission Impossible franchise, which just keeps on going - apparently Brad Pitt is to replace Tom Cruise for the fourth instalment, becoming the highest-paid actor in Hollywood history.

I'm a big fan of Brad's films, especially Se7en, Fight Club, Twelve Monkeys and Snatch, so if anyone deserves to move to the top of the league, it's Mr Pitt. But I just don't know if he has it in him to pull off the all-action Hollywood blockbuster hero. I think his best work has been when he's been playing freaks, loners and outsiders, whether a pikey in Snatch or Tyler Durden in Fight Club. Still, I'm sure we'll see soon enough.

On the subject, why do studios continue to release poor remakes of cult 70s and 80s shows? So far, off the top of my head, I can recall Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch, The Avengers, Thunderbirds, Miami Vice and Mission Impossible. A much-threatened A Team movie has yet to see the light of day.

But the one I'm waiting for is the chance to see The Hoff reprise his role as Michael Knight for a Knight Rider movie. Imagine Kitt with a 21st century Hollywood budget - now that would be worth seeing.