Stick to the small screen

"Reno 911: Miami" opens with a big-budget action sequence. There is a hostage situation and the "best sheriff's department in the world" is flown in via SWAT helicopter to save the day. Cut to Deputy Junior (Robert Ben Garant) waking up in his police squad car. It was all a daydream, a fantasy. My fantasy, as I was leaving this celluloid turd, was me slapping the producers of this movie, screaming, "The idea doesn't translate to the big screen!"\nThe film starts off with Lt. Dangle (Thomas Lennon) getting a letter instructing the Reno sheriff's department to report to Miami for a police convention. They show up there, after some confusion, to find the whole convention is quarantined in a hotel due to a biological terrorist attack. Now, the Reno sheriff's department is the only entity in Miami standing between law and order.\nThe worst part of this movie is the length. With a running time of 84 minutes, "Reno 911: Miami" is 54 minutes too long. Viewers feel like prisoners forced to watch a great performing comedy troupe fail making an overly ambitious movie. Also, while the film was actually shot in South Beach, the new setting doesn't add anything to the premise. The filmmakers even admit this when they bring some Reno regulars down to Miami to harass and annoy Dangle and Co.\nOne aspect of the movie I did like, however, was the cameos, which included Paul Rudd, Paul (Pee-Wee) Reubens, Patton Oswald and the best by far, The Rock. Most of these actors have made cameos on the show before, so I guess it wasn't that hard convincing them to do the movie as well. Rudd plays a Miami drug lord with a tan and thick Spanish accent. We later learn (anti-climatically, I might add) his character is really from Colorado.\nAs a casual fan of the show, I was expecting to laugh a lot harder than I did. I can count on one hand the times I laughed out loud. For 84 minutes of screen time, that is pretty sad. What's worse, the actors who play the members of sheriff's department weren't even at the top of their game. It really seemed like they made this movie just so they could take a trip to South Beach. The R-rating should have been used to try things that would never fly on TV. Instead, all we get is a scene at a nude beach with a gratuitous amount of nudity. This movie was a failure on so many levels and I hope the television program will be able to bounce back.