Top Gun: Maverick

The original Top Gun from 1986 is one of the most classically eighties films that’s still much loved although also mocked. There are some crazy lines of dialogue and the relationship between insubordinate pilot-genius Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and his instructor Charlotte Blackwood; and also the love between him and his copilot “Goose”—and rivalry with Tom “Iceman” Kasansky (Val Kilmer) which ends with hugging. Shot like a music video, and with a brilliant score, wonderful soundtrack some incredible flight scenes, it has its place—it is more awesome than it has any right to be, and better than anything that tried to recapture its recipe.

The sequel doesn’t mess about: it’s full of nostalgia, of course, but also a modern movie. Cruise put the cast through a flight-school so they could look authentic in the cockpit.  The film begins in exactly the same way (and all the music is intact except the Berlin song) but we suddenly cut to a The Right Stuff style test flight sequence, Maverick, despite being unpopular with all his seniors, is involved in something that is about to be cancelled but Maverick lives up to his reputation and disobeys orders yet again to prove a point. And instead of being court-martialled he is called to Top Gun at Miramar because there’s a nuclear weapons plant in some unspecified country that needs destroying. Maverick is the only one who can train a group of Top Gun pilots to fly a mission that’s suitably difficult.

At Miramar he is reunited with Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connolly) who runs a bar called “The Hard Deck”. She is name-checked in the original film so it’s fun to see her in person as a character who can really match Maverick, and so their long relationship is kind-of believable. 

There are a lot of young pilots on the slate for this mission including mouthy hotshot “Hangman” (Glen Powell) and—because it is 2022—Monica Barbaro as “Phoenix” and Kara Wang as “Halo”. And  there is Goose’s son Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller)—complete with moustache. He is also in the first film but as a kid sat on the piano as Anthony Edwards plays “Great Balls of Fire”. He hates Maverick for a few reasons. A lot of people hate Maverick, but he is there still—and he is there because Tom Kazansky is an Admiral.

I didn’t know what had happened to Val Kilmer’s health but the scene between Maverick and Iceman is unexpectedly emotional—maybe because of that backstory, or maybe just nostalgia. If it’s the former then the writers have expertly incorporated it into the story. And so there’s a part of this film which is about the difference between young and sure of yourself versus being older and more regretful of things done badly or not at all. It may not be very profound but it somehow goes well against the shirtless ballgame (yes there is one) and the banter between “Hangman”—who is a too handsome Maverick admirer)—and  Rooster’s cautious and methodical flying. And yet Maverick is still—still—saying that “if you think, you’re dead”. And Iceman loves him for it, which of course is fine in 2022.

The flying is the reason to see this movie on the big screen, and Cruise knows what he is good at—and he is good at doing crazy things with expensive machines. The flight sequences involve no effects, it is all done for real—it looks real and at key points there’s a sense of danger. He was also wise to hold back the release so it got to be shown in cinemas. And the way the Nationality of the enemy is skirted-around is a sensible move. The film has two climactic sequences and although it fires a very-well-used movie trope towards the end, it does reach a satisfying conclusion. I don’t know if this movie will still be watched and enjoyed in thirty years but it’s a better sequel than I ever expected.