Put On Your Raincoats | Miami Spice (Svetlana, 1986)
It was only a matter of time until I got to this, haha.
Obviously a porno from this era wouldn't have the budget for the meticulous production design, location scouting, lighting schemes and high fashions of the TV show, but the discount Vice aesthetics are still pretty fun. Lots of scenes near the water: beaches, pools and what have you. Sunglasses. Sunshine. Bikini babes. Driving around in a red sportscar, which I presume was rented for the shoot. The fact that it was shot on film gives it a touch more style than you'd expect from this era. The synth soundtrack doesn't really sound like Jan Hammer, but I didn't mind it.
On a plot level, like the show it involves undercover cops and drug dealers, but as it metes out plot information at a rate generously described as relaxed, it hangs together neither as a thriller nor as a parody of one. There aren't clear analogues for characters from the show, so I'm afraid you don't get porno Crockett and Tubbs, porno Switek and Zito, porno Gina and Trudy, although one could argue Robert Bullock is playing porno Castillo. As far as the cast goes, Amber Lynn is quite magnetic and Danielle, who gets a pretty amazing dance number and once again makes a strong case for the leopard print, is no slouch either. But as Sheri St. Clair has a husky laugh that I found really cute, she was my favourite.
And pornographically speaking, all the scenes here are engaging, although the clear highlight is the threesome in the pool, with underwater blowjobs and more than one character going down a slide.
"poppin' out the corna sto//Gas station pics to go//All I know is I pre-game//Then tear it up//I got grass to grow//Yeah bitch my field is greener//Walk in Bad bitch demeanor//and if a random tell me to smile I ignore the shit like a misdemeanor//Thick but on thin ice//cellulite cause I eat rice//I knew [that] his dick had a curve when I sat down [cause] I leaned right//so Imma side widdit//Wettest state//Slip & slide widdit"
Put On Your Raincoats | Miami Spice II (Svetlana, 1988)
In the Season 4 Miami Vice episode "Baseballs of Death", when Vice goes after a Chilean police chief suspected of murder and weapons trafficking but is met with resistance from the State Department, Switek figures out they can eavesdrop on his car phone with radios, thereby circumventing the need for a warrant. In Miami Spice II, the cops do not have the need for such tech savvy, as they are able to surveil suspects by standing outside their windows and watching them in plain view. Sometimes, simpler is better.
Anyway, this hangs together better than the first one as a pornographic riff on Vice as it puts more effort into the plot, throws in a climactic boat chase (which is a little low energy, but I appreciate the effort), and has a much better villain in John Leslie, who has enough texture in his presence that he probably could have made a good guest star in the actual series. He plays a drug lord named Sonny, with a crooked cop played by Stacey Donovan in his employ, two things which lead one to believe the filmmakers wanted to gesture towards the Burnett arc without risking copyright infringement. Anyway, Leslie's whole thing is that he's supposed to be perverted, but what we see of his perversions consists entirely of telling his subordinates to have sex with each other. In real life, that would get you a call from HR, but in a porno, eh, I've seen more perverted. And lest you forget what this is supposed to resemble, Amber Lynn chimes in with a helpful reminder. "Now THAT's a Miami Vice cop. Spicy."
I'm obviously a sucker for anything Vice-adjacent, so I appreciated that they even had a guy dress like Crockett. The attention to wardrobe accuracy does not translate to the main characters. Amber Lynn for some reason wears a gold jumpsuit, while Danielle brings out a zebra print in one scene. Sheri St. Clair does not have any particularly interesting wardrobe, but she does have some line readings that bring to mind Switek, something that will either do a lot for you or ruin the movie for you entirely.
Pornographically speaking, I cannot fault any of the scenes, but the clear highlight is the one at the end where Danielle gets gangbanged by four bodybuilders as a reward for solving the case. (I must admire the esprit de corps in this unit, as I suspect most people would not set up gangbangs for their coworkers.) It's not just the activity featured, but the eerie horror movie music that starts things off, as well as the fog machine and the black background, so there's a bit of that Season 5 visual darkness here for those who've made it far enough into the series. And on a less spicy note, there's a sex scene that pans to a robot beside the bed, although I regret to inform you that the characters do NOT have sex with the robot.