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+.