It’s style over substance all the way with Michael Mann’s noir’ish update of the popular TV ‘80s series about two undercover vice cops on the trail of some nasty, big-time drug dealers.

Amid the cacophony of nightclub crowds, it becomes immediately obvious that Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx), along with Tubbs’ live-in girl-friend (Naomi Harris) and the rest of their crew, are working to identify who’s responsible for a number of vicious murders in South Florida under orders from FBI Special Agent Fujima (Ciaran Hinds). Working on tips from a crazed informant (John Hawkes), they hook up with Isabella (“Memoirs of a Geisha” Gong Li), the seductive Chinese-Cuban concubine of an arms and drugs kingpin, Arcangel de Jesus Montoya (Luis Tosar), and travel to Cuba, Paraguay and Haiti. There’s talk of a federal-level leak and some Aryan Brotherhood mumblings but, basically, it’s cops ‘n’ robbers from start to finish with a few steamy sexual interludes tossed in.

Written, directed and produced by Michael Mann (“Collateral,” “The Insider,” “Heat”), it attempts to make up with fast-pace and visceral atmosphere what it lacks in characterization, humor and coherence. And it’s not really a buddy movie since Crockett and Tubbs barely communicate with each other except in sketchy gestures and broken, often inaudible phrases. Gorgeous Gong Li recites dialogue as if she learned it phonetically – with little comprehension of what the words mean.

On the technical side, Dion Beebe’s cinematography is stunning, utilizing high-def video with a Viper camera, and expert editing by William Goldenberg and Paul Rubell makes the gunfights particularly memorable.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Miami Vice” is an explosive, shoot ‘em-up 6 – what you see in the Coming Attractions is what you get.