Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick elevates nostalgia, and similar to its predecessor, this energetic and witty follow-up to the 1986 Bruckheimer produced/late Tony Scott directed action movie classic titled Top Gun delivers breathtaking set-pieces and thrilling action that lives up to the original. Sci-Fi filmmaker Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Oblivion) serves up the adrenaline of often nail-biting airborne action with ingenuity and craftmanship, but it’s a movie that certainly drowns into the implausible and predictable in the final stretch. Nevertheless, with strong word-of-mouth, glowing film reviews, an effective marketing push (the film has been delayed for 2 years now due to COVID-19), and an audience yearning to recapture their nostalgia from the original, Top Gun: Maverick will certainly sustain some strong box-office receipts for Paramount’s Memorial Day weekend tentpole.

For fans of the original one, no better time could come for a film for older generations who probably saw the original in the theater in their youth or young adulthood. The original 1986 Top Gun (which grossed $357 million worldwide) concluded the film and was never meant to be a franchise as filmmaker Tony Scott and producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer went separate ways and embarked on different projects. Outside of Mission Impossible, many other films in the last part of the decade featuring Tom Cruise haven’t quite delivered the success. American Made had modest U.S. domestic receipts and The Mummy (2017) reboot was a commercial and critical failure. Now approaching 60 and surviving a brutal amount of PR backlash in the mid-late 2000s, Top Gun: Maverick will certainly reinvent Tom Cruise and regain his momentum going into the next few Missions Impossible films, which are slated to be released in 2023 and 2024. With an overlong running time of 131 minutes, the film still maintains enough exuberance and remains the most satisfying sequel to a long bygone movie from the 80s. While the film certainly delivers all the fan-service you would expect, it also feels refreshing enough that it stands on its own rather than just feeling like a rehash.

In that respect, it was risky of Cruise and his fellow producers (including a returning Jerry Bruckheimer) to hire Joseph Kosinski. While not quite a recognizable director, he has directed big-budget actioners before with mixed results, with the disappointing Tron: Legacy and the wholly unoriginal, but competently crafted Oblivion, which also featured Tom Cruise. Though counterintuitive, Tom Cruise, as producer, obviously enjoyed working with Kosinski, and with Top Gun: Maverick he proves to have the sense of staging impressive action sequences and “dog fights” involving military jets and other stunning aerial photography that proves Kosinski is up for the task of staging live-action

There are a massive number of impressive stretches of quite a few sequences that are exhilarating, as Kosinski and his first-rate cast and crew apply themselves to staging the aerial scenes as intense as they can. Each sequence impresses since no green screen was used in the film, the actors are really flying and landing real fighter jets, and they even spent months of training for their roles. They even had to learn to operate and utilize the interior cameras inside the plane due to limited space. The result is absolutely harrowing and vivid, and all of those actors deserve high marks for their commanding performances.

Huge props to Tom Cruise as well, for going above and beyond in making his co-productions and performances as polished as they can be. His determination just earned him a special Actor D’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival for his yore, commitment, and craftmanship. A great actor. who has delivered many memorable performances over the years, with Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Collateral, and Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise proves he still has the drive and passion for acting and filmmaking. Outside of Jackie Chan and a few others, how many other actors are willing to endure their own stunts? With Top Gun: Maverick, this film could have easily been written off as irrelevant or “won’t younger audiences” care. They will inevitably find themselves curious about watching all the hoopla of Top Gun: Maverick, and many younger audiences will find themselves looking for the older Top Gun film.

The film begins with a montage of an F-14 Tomcat ready to be launched by fellow Navy pilots, complete with the original score, before transitioning into the classic Kenny Loggin song “Danger Zone.” One can’t help but be repelled by the sentimental affection for the past. We open with Pete flying through the air, testing the jet. He is a captain now, still caught up with his youth, and also a rebel who has never moved up in the ranks. Perhaps moving up in the ranks would take him out of the air and more into a command center, where his true passion and legion is being up in the air. After a test mission in which Maverick pushes the acceleration way above altitude despite being told not to. This ends up surprising all of his superiors with awe and equal skepticism. Maverick is certainly the best Navy Strike fighter, but he’s also very insubordinate. Eventually, Maverick gets ordered to lead and instruct a group of recent Top Gun graduates with caution by his superiors. His task is to prepare them for a dangerous mission against an unnamed enemy that is clearly Russia (like the Soviet Union in the 80s, life does go full circle). Maverick’s duty is to prepare them to take out enemy targets at dangerously low altitudes with their T-14 Tomcat fighter jets.

It’s an audaciously dangerous assignment that comes in the finale, and it certainly delivers. While the action triumphs, so does the human drama as well. Co-written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, it stays true to the original story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks. They also bring some sharp character depth to Pete Maverick as well as to some of the supplier players as well–most impressively to Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of the departed Nick “Goose” Bradshaw who was played by Anthony Edwards in the original. “Gooses” accidental death still traumatizes and torments Maverick. Creating a distance between “Rooster” and Maverick The potential recruits are all reluctant once they find out that Maverick is going to train them. Afterall, Maverick doesn’t have the best of reputations for following commands and taking orders. However, it’s the Mavericks’ old foe and friend Iceman (Val Kilmer) who is the one who persuaded Jon Hamm and Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm) to train the recruits. All of the exchanges Cruise has with his fellow cast members are sharply written, and all hold many layers. The scenes of Maverik with Cyclone offer the most tension, while the exchanges between Rooster and Maverick hold the strongest arc. There is something very empowering about seeing Maverick train and inevitably pass the torch in what could be a trilogy or franchise to many young talents.

We follow Maverick around as a pilot, airman, and teacher, but there is something emotionally fragile about Maverick here, perhaps something more somber and vulnerable than you would anticipate. He’s a loner, apparently never been married, and never had kids. Perhaps his passion and time as a navy flight officer and aviator lapped up his time over the years. With Maverick rarely moving up in command, and never maintaining a relationship, the absence of Kelly McGillis’s Charlotte character clearly shows that he isn’t the best at love. Maverick seems to be trapped in the past, trying to recapture his glory days, and never wanting to grow as everyone around him seems to outrank him as he’s trapped in limbo. Maverick ends up re-connecting with his old love, Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), a character that was referenced in the original film. Penny and Maverick eventually fall back in love, as she encourages him along the way. What appears to be a trite role ends up becoming an affectionate one as all the moments with Penny and Maverick are quite resonant. Their chemistry is undeniably tender and sensual as well.

All of the characteristics found in Bruckheimer and Don Simpson are present, such as patriotism, loyalty, romance, friendship, and determination. There is even a bromance to be found along the way. While the first film has been accused of having a pro-war propaganda stance (a silly criticism I always found trivial), if anything, the latest Top Gun: Maverick indeed recaptures the energy of an old-school blockbuster. All of this is achieved by stunning action by a commanding cast—from a brief but standout performance by Ed Harris, as well as the characters playing the recruits that include Glenn Powell as “Hangman,” Lewis Pullman as “Bob,” Danny Ramirez as “Fanboy,” Jay Ellis as “Payback,” Greg Tarzan Davis as “Coyote,” and the scene-stealer Monica Barbar as “Phoenix”. We get the nostalgia fan service throughout, including a beach sequence shot with crimson silhouettes, as well as scenes of Connelly and Cruise cruising together on a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle.

The film reaches a satisfying peak at the midpoint with all of the human drama and payoffs, which involves Maverick training the recruits into the air. A dozen are recruited, which means only half will prevail. While up in the air, each of these moments is vertiginous. That will certainly take your breath away, as every set-piece is expertly staged. Even the framing offers a meticulous use of symmetry that recalls the work of Jonathan Demme. There is also furiousness to be found off air level as well, with Maverick finding himself at odds with Cyclone, in which Maverick ends up disobeying orders in the training, feeling the mission of the low altitude is a borderline suicide mission. Maverick rationalizes to Cyclone that he believes they can accomplish the mission without being shot down or dying in a severely dangerous mission.

After much training, heated debates, and exchanges with the characters, the film builds up to a riveting climax that takes a preposterous dip, which takes a few scenes to forgive the unbelievability. While being logistically impossible and borderline eye-rolling during the climax, the moments after are quickly redeemed by a few more jaw-dropping sequences that deliver some of the most inventive spectacle of any summer blockbuster you will probably see this year. This is also redeemed by the terrific acting by both Cruise and Teller who are quite dynamic in their scenes together.

Cruise once again delivers a first-rate physical and emotional performance, effectively reprising the role of Maverick. While staying true to the spirit of Tony Scott’s original, the latest is top-notch escapism at its most exuberant. Top Gun: Maverick is much grander, and thundering, being far more capacious than the original. But it’s not all mindless escapism, either—it offers some earned characterizations and knows very well how to immerse an audience. By far, the most breathtaking and action-packed film of the summer, it will be hard to top.