Top Gun: Maverick Review
You should go out and watch Top Gun: Maverick as soon as you can because it is amazing on the big screen but won’t be in Theatres very long.
I had some special reasons to watch Top Gun: Maverick. When I grew up, I was an Air Cadet and the experience has influenced my whole life ever since. Not only was I in Air Cadets (a youth organization supported by the Canadian Military), but when I was, the original “Top Gun” movie came out and so I had to watch it a dozen times.
There is so much to say about the new movie. So I don’t keep you in suspense, I will say that I have my problems with Tom Cruise and a lot of the movie was about how supposedly wonderful his character is. I don’t like that Tom Cruise has come out and spoken against psychiatry or that I have heard bad things about him and his religion. Still, I have to give this movie four stars out of five and say it is definitely worth the $15 or so to watch it on the big screen.
There were so many things to like about this movie, but sadly one of them wasn’t the acting. As far as acting goes though, I did like the effort made to portray Tom Cruise as a more mature and caring person than the cocky, narcisstic character from the first movie.
When the movie started, it was introduced by Tom Cruise, without makeup or hair dye and I have to say he is really starting to age. And in the scenes where he appeared as an athletic, sweaty alpha male with sunglasses on, they were careful not to show anything below his shoulders, most likely because as I saw in other movies, his stomach is starting to curve outwards a little.
But what I really went to see this movie for was the flying scenes. They really did go all out, from showing the iconic part where Kenny Loggins sings “Danger Zone” as you see (and hear this time) jets taking off from an aircraft carrier, to the scenes near the end when they fly their ‘impossible’ mission.
One of the things I liked about this movie was the leading ladies. Monaco Barbarro and Jennifer Connely are just so unimaginably attractive in this movie, though they don’t have the graphic sex scenes or near nudity from the first movie. It was also good to see Val Kilmer in the movie, who has had some unfortunate battles with his health as of late.
Another thing I liked about the movie was the strained relationships and the return to the concept that “Maverick (and other characters) are up in the sky flying against a ghost.” Only the ghost this time is Goose, who was played by Anthony Edwards in the first movie. I have always had a problem with how they killed Goose off in the first movie, not just because of Tom Cruise’s crocodile tears at the funeral, but simply because I don’t believe that a plane spinning at 400 knots could shoot off a canopy that would remain stationary above the plane long enough for someone to eject into it.
I also really didn’t like how the writers and director of the movie would show Iceman acting so scared and confused that he is unable to shoot the target plane while flying in front of Maverick. But that’s just me. I hate being told what to think about people, especially fictional characters.
But let’s get into the flying parts. The movie starts with Tom Cruise once again defying orders to become the hero as a flight test pilot. This I kind of loved. It reminded me of times as a kid I would take my cars out on the highway and see how far I could push them to get a top speed. This part of the movie was one of the gripping and funny scenes, when he takes an experimental plane to its limits.
Then we go into training scenes, started out by a bar scene where alpha males ride each other hard, joking with and insulting each other. This short scene is just about the only character development and almost completely without entertainment value (other than the scenes with Monica Barbarro and Jennifer Connely I should say). But still, the idea of the chameraderie of aviators while drinking and singing drinking songs was kind of cool.
I wish I could describe the flying scenes better. There was such an excellent build-up during the training part of the movie. Tom Cruise is shown as a pilot who can out-dogfight anyone, consistently taking on two planes and shooting both down (using their computer-aided heads up display gunsights). This was a pretty fun segment. The action was fast and furious.
One of the things I have a bit of a problem with regarding their impossible mission is that the whole idea for it seemed to be completely stolen from Star Was, Episode IV. Fly through a canyon staying low to avoid missles, pull off an impossible feat and then hit a target only 3 metres across. LAME!
All in all though, it really was ‘edge of your seat flying’ there was such an intense, engaging battle scene at the end that lasted for far longer than any such scenes I can think of in recent memory that this movie just has to get a salute and a thumbs up.
In the end, Tom Cruise and his friends have really pulled something amazing off. But the way things are, (only about 20 people were in the theatre I went to) I think we will soon be able to stream this movie or buy it on DVD. I may just invest in a bigger, better TV to really enjoy it when it does. But the movie won’t make me listen to any BS from Tom Cruise about psychiatry. He may be a good action star but he is far from being a qualified physician.
