Top Gun: Maverick
Before our screening of Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise appeared on the screen to thank us for watching this film in the theater. It was short, sweet and somewhat insignificant…until the movie started.
As “Danger Zone” begins to play, nostalgia hits home. Silhouetted F/A-18 jets prepare to take off an aircraft carrier at sunset. Their engines ignite, my seat shakes, and the action begins. For the next two hours, I was on the edge of my seat, I laughed, and I felt feelings. This is why I go to the theater. Top Gun: Maverick is why you should return to the theater as well.
It’s been over thirty years since Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise – Top Gun, Mission Impossible franchise, Jerry Maguire) trained as a Top Gun. Today, he lives a quiet life when he’s not testing top secret military jets at speeds beyond mach 10. His job is different, but his renegade personality has remained intact. This attitude would have had him removed from the Navy years ago had it not been for his friendship with Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer – Top Gun, Tombstone, The Doors).
When a new threat is discovered, Maverick is called back to Top Gun to train the next generation of flying aces. His return is met with reluctance by several people: 1) naval leader Admiral “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm – Madmen, The Town) who views him as an obsolete wildcard, 2) local bar owner and former flame Penny (Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind, Requiem of a Dream) whose heart he has broken, and 3) new trainee “Rooster” (Miles Teller – Whiplash, The Spectacular Now) who is the son of his former partner, “Goose,” who was tragically killed in a training exercise with Maverick in the pilot seat. Now Maverick must not only prepare this new group of hot shots for a life-and-death mission, but he must also erase the doubts of his detractors.
Full disclosure: I had to borrow a friend’s blu-ray to watch 1986’s Top Gun in preparation for this sequel, so I wasn’t going into Top Gun: Maverick as a huge fan or as a way to remember my childhood. I entered this movie with lukewarm anticipation, but it immediately took flight and reminded me of why I love going to the movies.
Tom Cruise is as charming as can be in the lead role. He is, somehow, both cool and cheesy in perfect symmetry. The new class of Top Gun pilots share in some of that “cheese.” They deliver dorky insults and quips just like the characters of the first film but miraculously avoid making it feel false or out-of-place. It just feels fun.
The story relies heavily on the drama from the original Top Gun, and it works. Many of the emotions derive from Maverick’s bond with Rooster and the past that haunts their relationship. Top Gun fans will appreciate this tension immediately, and newcomers will be brought up to speed with flashbacks and clips from the original film. Once that emotion is established, the action kicks in, and this is where the movie soars. The flying sequences are awe-inspiring – imagine the Dunkirk flying sequences but at 1,100 mph and 9gs. (Tom Cruise said in his opening statement there was no CGI, but I have to imagine that was hyperbole, or they blew up an entire military airport for this film.) These action sequences are reason enough to watch Top Gun: Maverick on the big screen. Now, add in some really great humor (totally absent in the original), a truly sweet and engaging romance (without the gratuitous sex scene), and you already have a great movie, but Top Gun: Maverick does something extraordinary in the third act. The tone changes. It no longer relies on its nostalgia, and it flies on its own wings. The story that felt so familiar takes a sharp left turn and makes the adventure something completely new. It’s at this point, Top Gun: Maverick becomes something special.
Tom Cruise thanked us for watching the film in the theater, but I want to thank him for giving us a reason to come back.
