I love it when a movie comes out and everyone on the internet/social media can’t stop raving about it. Yes, this comes with some expectations once I finally see the movie, but I can’t help but get legitimately excited when I see people talking about a movie. I hear people talk about how sequels are annoying because they’re just money grabs, and how rarely a sequel is better than the original; well, I have to say, this is much of an improvement on the first Top Gun in more ways than one.
SYNOPSIS: After more than 30 years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. Training a detachment of graduates for a special assignment, Maverick must confront the ghosts of his past and his deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who choose to fly it.
So I should probably go ahead and get this out of the way: Tom Cruise is the greatest action star alive. I don’t really see how this could be argued at this point in his career, and he’s certainly not done. His dedication, and determination to employ practicality into this movie, is truly inspiring. Cruise also gives an elevated performance in comparison to this movie’s 1986 counterpart, adding much more emotion and depth to the character of Maverick. I haven’t seen this much vulnerability from him in quite some time.
With Top Gun being a pop culture staple of the eighties, translating some of the apparent camp of the first movie into the sequel was something I felt Joseph Kosinski did quite well. I cracked a smile when the beach sports scene came on, because I knew that what I was watching wasn’t just fan service, it was faithful and well-crafted homage. This movie was also just so much fun to watch. There was an atmosphere surrounding it that was warm and exciting, while maintaining a well-balanced tone with some of its heavier story elements.
Reigning in new characters, we have Miles Teller as Bradley Bradshaw, who brings a lot of contention to the film’s story. His relationship with Maverick is definitely the core of the film, and their scenes together were intense and investing. Otherwise, I think this movie does an okay job with bringing in the other members of the team. They’re all fairly likeable, and I was certainly routing for them, despite them not having the best development overall.
Cruise’s relationship with Jennifer Connelly’s Penny Benjamin was well-crafted enough for it not to come off like something we’ve seen before, but I wasn’t nearly as invested in this relationship as I was with the dynamic between Teller and Cruise. This was apparent in the film’s third act, where I found myself forgetting about Connelly’s character altogether.
Val Kilmer makes his return as Iceman, and they accomplished this with such grace and compassion, I was truly blown away by how considerately they approached it, and I truly loved his inclusion in the film.
The action here is electrifying, and I simply cannot praise it enough. The aerial scenes are so meticulously crafted and edited that I genuinely can’t believe they pulled it off with the amount of practicality that they employed. All of the scenes involving the F-18s were so white-knuckled and intense that I never wanted them to end.
Also I want to see footage of movie theaters watching this movie, because I know my head was tilting side-to-side instinctively during several scenes.
The third act contains the best action I’ve seen in a movie since Mission Impossible: Fallout in 2018, and that is really saying something considering how much I love that movie. I couldn’t believe my eyes for the majority of the finale, and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out. I’m a sucker for an impossible task that has to be done, and MAN this movie takes that concept and runs with it. You truly feel like the characters are walking into a deathtrap, and the intensity you feel with that is tremendous. This, compiled with the use of the actors actually being in the jets for the stunts, makes for a truly breathtaking action experience that you simply can’t miss.
This movie justified its existence more and more as it went on, and I was so blown away by the practicality of all of the action. The dedication of not only Tom Cruise, but the rest of the cast and crew is apparent, I love nothing more than to see a movie that truly has care for the craft behind it, and Top Gun: Maverick was exactly that.
8/10
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