Written by Peter Craig (Based on Characters created by Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Sr.) / Directed by Joseph Kosinski / Released in the UK by Paramount Pictures International / 131 Minutes
Review by Rob Deb
26th May 2022
The Pitch: After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him.
Top Gun is a film I’ve never been really that fond of. It has fights and flights but something about the bro ho-ho’s and bravado against the backdrop of the American Way never really kept me. It also suffered from its own fan base being many of the rugby team I struggled through most of my uni years to avoid like the plague. I've seen it once and never really felt the need to revisit and wanted to see how this film scored on its own merit.
It totally won me over.
THERE IS A GENERATIONAL, EVEN FAMILIAL CLASH AND THIS IS THE HEART OF THE FILM.
From the outset, Maverick is still outwardly very much the same lead he was in the first film. That soon unravels fast as we see his defiance of authority is always about some sense of greater good rather than the people immediately around him. His wilderness years are soon put behind him and his assignment is to take the highly fragile ‘New Class’ with Call Signs like ‘Coyote’, ‘Fanboy’ and, um...’Bob' and ensure they can become the next generation, taking on an incredibly tough mission that exists in some nebulous ‘other country’ with an exact military scenario that would not seem out of place on a holodeck running the Kobayashi Maru.
The ensemble themselves, while more representative than the original dirty dozen, exist with very little behind their call signs aside from a few signature traits. The most notable is ‘Rooster’ the son of Goose, Maverick's co-pilot, who died in the first film. This generational, and even familial clash is where the heart of the film lies. Maverick is compelling, being made to face consequences from the first film, and more importantly not shying away from any of them. As the lack of focus on the ensemble proves, Maverick is a Tom Cruise acting vehicle and his charm, candour, humour and, for me, essentially, his vulnerability all come to the fore at various points. As he attempts to build bridges and gain trust to varying degrees of success and failure, you see a man coming to terms with his instincts and conflicts with his own evolution from soldier to leader.
FORGET MELODRAMA - IT’S ABOUT PLANES, SOLD ON PLANES AND BY GOD, DO YOU SEE PLANES
It's not all melodrama, although it does help raise the investment in a team that would otherwise be deemed ‘the expendables’. The film is about planes, it's sold on planes. And By god do you see planes. In the medium of death stars and multiverses it's great to see such grounded action sequences with, apparently, an admirable level of research to ensure that everything shown is something that can be done in the real world. The level of pressure and jeopardy is far higher than in any galaxy far far away. When the mission is finally embarked you really feel you're in the cockpit and facing herculean tasks and astronomical odds. Although I opened by saying how the first Top Gun made me feel I lost that loving feeling, I feel it's apt to say Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise do have some of the most heartfelt and compelling moments in the cinema I’ve seen in a long time and between those moments and the action, this film soars!
Tom Cruise takes us up, up and away with sky-high action while keeping the characters suitably grounded, resulting in a thrill ride with a really big heart.
Top Gun: Maverick is out at cinemas now. You can rent or buy the original on Amazon Prime.