Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
“Don’t think, just do.”
The Stage.
36 years after graduating from the Top Gun program, Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick, is a Navy captain testing experimental aircrafts. He’s called back to the Top Gun program to train a pack of twelve elite pilots - including Goose’s son - for what looks to be a suicide mission.
The Review.
I think that the original Top Gun is a fantastic movie. I saw it when I was young and just loved everything about it - the drama on the ground, the drama in the air, the plane work. I think it’s one of the first movies I’ve ever cried during when a certain character dies because I just didn’t see it coming back then. The script by Jim Cash and Jack Epps really made you care about every character, which made the wins and losses matter. The missiles and dog fighting were simply icing on the cake.
I disagree with those who think that a bad sequel has a negative impact on the original film, but when you really love a film and it has a terrible sequel, it’s an immense feeling of disappointment. That was my big concern when, years ago, I heard that they were making a Top Gun sequel. But those fears quickly came to a rest because I knew that Tom Cruise wouldn’t let us down. Tom Cruise happens to be an actor who just loves movies, and he loves the audience experience while watching a movie.
In short, if you liked the original Top Gun, and I think most people do, you’re probably going to love this film. This script, by Peter Craig and regular Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, gets the same things right that the original did - it makes us fall in love with an even bigger cast of characters and the rest comes second, so that when there’s smoke in the air, you care. The wrench here is the addition of Miles Teller as Rooster, Goose’s son. He and Maverick have beef because Maverick pulled his papers to join the Navy, knocking precious years off of Rooster’s Navy career.
The other pilots are great too. The new class standouts were Hangman, the modern day Iceman, Phoenix, a level headed Top Gun grad, and Bob, a soft spoken wingman. Jon Hamm steps into the hard ass Vice Admiral role as Cyclone, another old timer from the Top Gun program. And it wouldn’t be a Top Gun film without a love interest, played by the ever charming and absolutely gorgeous Jennifer Connelly. It also wouldn’t be a Top Gun film without a shirtless sport on the beach scene, and we get a nice “dogfight football” game that’s a very fun (but not as horny as the original’s beach volleyball game) moment. That being said, the call backs are pretty light compared to many legacy sequels. There are only two characters that return, focusing on the future and not the past, something that I really respected.
Most of the film is centered on training for a mission to blow up a uranium plant. The catch? It’s basically a suicide mission. It’s in a crater that’s surrounded by huge inclines, and can only be reached by a ridiculously tough to navigate valley. Tom Cruise’s requirement for coming back to Top Gun was that the planes could not be CG, and what a fucking difference it made in any scene where someone was in the sky.
Much of the film takes place in the cockpits of F-18s and you see - scratch that - you feel the actors soaring through the air. Every single time there’s a plane scene, it just felt thrilling, including the training sequences. When we finally get to the mission, the stakes feel real. The movie is very predictable, but somehow I still felt myself gripping the arm of the theater chair hoping that each pilot would make it out alive. The finale to this film is, simply put, a white knuckle ride with several moments that are absolutely breathtaking. This is a film that will hold up in thirty years in the same thrilling way because it doesn’t just feel real…the majority of what you’re seeing is real.
In the beginning of the movie, Admiral Cole tells Tom Cruise that pilots aren’t going to be needed much longer; drone technology is getting so advanced that eventually, they’ll be replaced. To this, Maverick responds, “Maybe so sir…but not today.” One might take that as Maverick just sticking one to the Rear Admiral, who was originally on his way to sack him, but I took that as Tom Cruise telling the audience that CGI and deep fakes might be the future of film, but…not this one. I’ve said it before - Tom Cruise feels like the last true movie star, and films like Top Gun: Maverick simply reaffirm that. You see him in the cockpit doing fucking spirals. You see him taking so much g-force he’s basically passing out in front of your eyes.
There are a lot of Tom Cruise detractors, most of that coming from him being a scientologist. I could not care less what he does in his spare time, because honestly if you look logically at any religion, none of them make sense. From the floating cloud man who was nailed to a cross and came back as a zombie to whatever the fuck scientology is, they’re all batshit crazy. All I see on screen is a man who cares so much about the industry he’s in, that he’s probably willing to kill himself for it.
The End.
Before the movie started, there was a thirty-second message from Tom Cruise. He thanked us for coming to the theater to see his movie, because he made it for us. Thank you, Tom Cruise. Both my wife and I had a fantastic time at the movies, and you were the reason why. It made us laugh, it made us cry, it made us fist pump. With traditional blockbuster films on the brink of extinction, sitting next to a CGI dinosaur film and a CGI super hero film on the theater marquee, Top Gun: Maverick kicked practical ass.
