Review.

Grab your sunglasses, tanning oil, motorbikes, & Budweiser, cause Cruise is back with a sequel over 30 years in the making , Top Gun Maverick. Tom Cruise repises his role as Navy fighter pilot extrodainaire Pete Maverick Mitchel. Along with Cruise are a batch of newcomers to the Top Gun story. Jennifer Connnely plays Penny a love inerest of Maverick from back in the day, Miles Teller as Bradley Rooster Bradshaw the son of Mavericks former air partner Goose who died in the first movie, & Jon Hamm as Vice admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simposn. Val Kimmer returns as Mavericks former rival turned great friend and ally Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in a brief scene. All call signs are a go, lets talk about Top Gun Maverick. Warning, some spoilers are ahead.

The plot is not that complex so we will start with a quick summary. The film takes place more than 30 years after the events of the first fim. Pete Maverick now with more than 3 decades of experince as a captain is working as a test pilot for the Navy, when he is given orders by admiral “Cyclone” (Jon Hamm) to train a group of Top Gun graduate pilots to prepare for a nearly impossible mission (see what I did there?). Returning to Fightertown USA, Maverick run’s into Penny (Jennifer Connelely), a daughter of a Colonel from the first movie and a romantic interest from Mavericks past. She is now the owner of the Hard Deck bar.The two re-kindle a relationship that they once had. Penny later on gives Maverick the motivation to lead his pilots on a deathtrap of a mission.One of the pilots in training is Rooster bradshaw, the son of Mavericks best firend and flymate who died during a training exercise in the first movie. Maverick and Rooster have a tense relationship with each other as Maverick was responsible for withdrawing Roosters application to the Navy and delaying his flight training as a result of Maverick keeping a promise to his formers friend’s widow to not let her son suffer the same fate as his father. In the weeks leading up the climatic mission, Maverick struggles with forgiving himself for the events of his partners death in the first film and letting Rooster push through on his potential as a Navy Pilot. After weeks of intense aerial dogfighting training and pushing their physical, and mental to the limit, Maverick leads Rooster, and 4 of the other pilots on the most dangerous mission of their lives in a nonstop thrilling action finale.

To me there are very few films in a franchise where you can unaminoulsy agree that the sequel surprasses its predecessor in every way manageable. Top Gun Maverick is that rare movie. I dont know if I can write enough how fucking awesome this was was to watch and experince in the theatre. In an age of massive CGI blockbusters, Maverick goes the route that not many movies go today, with a blend of practical and CGI affects, that are so good, you really dont even notice what is real and what is not. They really make you feel that you are in a cockpit with these guys, hyperventalating, talking shit, and avoding death and destruction at every flip, maneuver, drop, & explosion. The air dogfights are visually some of the best action sequences to grace a screen in god knows how long, I cant recall how many shots of a jet engine firiing up there was but each time, the sight and sound of it made my heart feel like I was about to go flying 10 g’s in the air.

Outside of phenomonal sound design, and visual and speical effects, there is an emotional, story here that works. A big theme of this movie, much simillar to the original is letting go of our past,moving forward and forgiving oursleves. This was present in Top Gun 1, with Maverick struggling to deal with his fathers death as a piolt in a trianing exericse. This was compunded when Goose dies in the Movie and Maverick has to find it within himself to move forward and utilize his potential. Here in this film we find Maverick struggling to grasp the death of his friend and keep Rooster from expercing the same fate. In Val Kimmers, only appearnce in the movie, we get a scene where him and Maverick meet at Icemans home. Iceman wants to talk to Maverick about the progress of training his team for the mission at hand. Maverick tells Iceman the pain he still feels from the events of the first movie and his fear of those events being repeated. Iceman simply looks at him and tells him he has to let go and re-asures maverick that he knows that he is the man for the job. This scene is even more heart tugging as not only Crusie sheds a tear, but we see the real life health struggles of Val Kimmer as he has been fighting throat Cancer and has to type onto a computer screen what to say to avoid the physical pain from speaking. At the end of the Scene Iceman brings himself to give Maverick physical words, and a funny moment ensues when he stands up and looks at Maverick and asks “who is the better pilot betwen you and me?”. Maverick responds quietly”lets not ruin a good moment”, poking fun at the ultra competiveness the two had with each in the first movie. There may have been a dozen other heartfelft moments like this sprinkled thoruhout the movie, and some legit good laughs. Maverick tells Rooster and the other pilots that they cant think while they are in the air, they just have to do what they do otherwise they will die. In a hilarious moment in the finale, Rooster confronts Maverick after he crashes his jet. Rooster returns to rescue Maverick. Maverick runs toward rooster and pushes him to the ground and yells “What were you thinking?!” Rooster responds “You told me not to think!”. Quite frankly i think that is an appliable lesson in life as well, as often times as humans we all may think to much about our current lives or our future,but sometimes you just gotta do and not think so much or your going to struggle.

Very few things didnt work for me. I imagine some people will watch this movie and just see it as a crabon copy of the first movie, due to the its very simillar storyline & themes simillar to how people thought that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a copy of Star Wars: A New hope. For me the only this had me worried was in the beginning of this movie when we get a duplciate opening crawl and credits sequence that is almost identical to the original movie. there are also a few direct flashbacks from the first movie where they pull up the exact footage from Top Gun 1 and a use a few callbacks with pictures of the events from the first movie in people’s lockers and on the walls in the base where a lot fo the movie takes place. Top Gun 2 also has a rivlary between two of the competing pilots Rooster and Hangman played by Glenn Powell, showing similairites to Maverick and Iceman’s rivalry in Top Gun. To me a lot of this really was not that problematic just due to the movie being so enjoyable overall and really not just mliking on making it a Nostalgia fest. If you want a real good example of a movie milking Nostalgia, just watch The Matrix Resurrections, which is the equivalent of spending two hours drinking elephant ass juice (not saying I have personal experience). Character Wise Penny doesnt add a ton to the movie other than just being a the romatic interest for Cruise, who ends up being one of people that helps Maverick re motivate himself to be the team the leader after some scary events occur during a taining sequence. The relationship between Maverick and Penny gives the movie some of it’s heart and my goodness is Jennifer Connelly absolutley beautiful in this as she is in just about every movie she stars in.

Overall Top Gun Maverick is a super fun, enjoyable, and emtional sequel to a pop culture hit from the 80’s. Tom Cruise with this and the still continuing Mission Impossible Franchise, continues to show he is still a one of kind prescnce in Hollywood. I hesiate to even call him a actor at this point because this man goes well far and beyond in making these movies these days and saying he is just an actor I feel like is an insult to his abilites and spirit. With another person in charge, Top Gun may have just ended up on a streaming service, since it was expected to be relased in 2020 which we all know that whole year just wasnt it. Cruise fought Tooth and nail to make sure Maverick could be relased in theatres and only theatres and man did it pay off because this is one of the better in movie theatre experinces in recent years. If Cruise wants to do a Top Gun 3 in 20 years or so, I say let the man do it cause this movie was better than it should have had any right being. It’s one thing to make a sequel, but to make a sequel decades later and have it exceed all expectations is a feat NO ONE has accomplished. Serioulsy go watch this in the theatre, dont wait for it to hit streaming to watch it on a regular TV, phone, laptop, or Ipad. Top Gum Maverick is must see entertainment and defenitley gave me the need for Speed. A+.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent stars Nicholas Cage as himself in this meta action/comedy. Along for the ride are Pedro Pascal as Javi Gutierrez, Tiffany Haddish as a CIA agent Vivian, Ike Barinholtz as Vivians colleague Martin, Sharon Horgan as Cage’s Ex wife Olivia Henson, Lilly Sheen as Cage’s daughter Addy, Neil Patrick Harris plays Richard Fink, Nicholase’s agent, & Paco Leon as Javis cousin. Nicholas Cage is looking for his next big role, while struggling to pay some outstanding financial debts and balance his personal life with his daughter. Cage is presented an opputunity to make some quick cash by going to buisness man Javi Gutierrees house in Spain and attend a party there. While at Javis house Cage begins forming a friendhip with the buisnessman who also shows Cage how huge a fan of his work he is. After a night by himself at a bar (and with a re-occuring voice in his head), Cage is grabbed by two CIA agents Vivian and Martin, where they tell Cage that Javi is a notrious criminal who is holding captive a girl named Maria who is the daughter of a poltician looking to crack down on crime. The two agents enlist Cage to continue befriending Javi and try to find out where Maria is being held. The rest of the film follws Cage going down an andventure of re-living his previous roles, (and creating a few new roles), attempts to clear his new friend Javi of what he has been accused while also trying to amend the issues his acting career has created between him and those he loves.

This movie was thorougly enjoyable to watch due to the chemistry between Nicholas Cage and Pedro Pascall . Pedro really comes across as a loving ,dedicated, awkward fan of his newly acquainted friend. Pedro has been on a hit streak for a while now with his work on the series, Narcos, The Mandalorian on Disney plus, and now TUWOMT. One hilarious sequence in the film occurs whenr Cage agress to co-write and star in a script with Javi, they then venture into a nearby town to come up with ideas for the movie, but take acid before doing so. Cage recieves a text from Vivian asking if he has made any progress on the case and he responds “not yet, I am on acid right now” and Vivian responds promptly “WTF”. Javi and Cage become paranoid while in town and try to run away from what they beleive are two spys watching them. While on the run they come across a wall blocking their path and dont see that there is a clear path around the wall.The two try to jump over the wall, and Cage is unsucesful trying to pull Javi over the wall. Javi tells Cage to leave him behind and get away. Cage hops over, and starts getting emotional, thnking he has left Javi behind for good. Javi walks around the corner and says “Mr Cage?”. In an earlier scene after Cage and Javi meet, the two have a discussion about their favirote movies and Javi admits to loving Paddington 2. Cage sort of brushes him off and doesnt take him serioulsy when he says how good the movie is, until we cut to them watching the movie together and being in tears.

Throughout the movie Cage has internal conversations with the super eccentric movie version of himself which produces some really entertaining moments. Once scene that sticks in my mind, is when after the first night of meeting Javi, Cage retreats to a nearby bar for drinks and begins having a conversation with his alter ego. The two begin having an argument about what their goals are as one person in which movie Cage in response slaps the real Cage. After the slap, the two begin making out with each other. Cage has some signature CAGE moments in this, but for the most time it felt he was being pretty down to earth and authentic throughout the move, showing the struggle of a man trying to figure out if he should continue acting and focus on his family or say F it and keep being Cage. It makes sense this situation playing out in Cage’s head because of the actual high volume of films that Cage has appeared in over the years and for the longest time seemed like he sacrificed quality over Quantity. Not saying that Cage hasn’t been good in several movies over the laast two decades but their are defenitley duds (a lot of which were straight to DVD). A few hollywood meta moments are sprinkled thoughout the movie, such as one scene where Cage and Vivian are talking about the case and, Cage begins explaining him and Javis plan to write and star in their own movie, which Vivian responds to Cage that the premise might not be good enough to bring in an audience because everyone is so used to big franchise movies like Marvel. Besides that, the only other meta moments are refernces to Cages filmagraphy, and the reoccuring appreciation of Padington 2 ( I have not seen 1 or 2 so I should get myself to stream them one day).

The film has a bit of a predicatble ending, as Cage is able to finally make his masterpiece based on the experince with Javi for the whole movie, and saving the relationship with his ex wife and daughter. We see the ending clip of the movie where Demi Moore plays Cages Wife. The ending scene is Cage sharing a moment with his daughter and ex-wife as they watch Paddington 2. We move the camera outside the house and on top of the roof overlooking the city and get to a yell from a fmailliar voice saying “IM FRICKING CAAAGGGGGGEEEEEEE”. Besides the predictable ending, I had a great time with TUWOMT. B+ from me.