MOVIE REVIEW: Top Gun Maverick

 (ADecentCupOfCoffee - Bilmuri)

I feel like I spend a lot of time in my reviews talking about nostalgia and how so many people don't seem to understand the assignment. That..may have something to do with the fact that a lot of people are trying to lean on nostalgia and not just blowing it but making a lesser product as a result.

Top Gun Maverick has none of those problems. As a film, 'Maverick' understands its assignment perfectly and is very nearly perfect as a result.

End of review.

...Seriously, there's nothing left to say. 

Oh FINE.

THE LONG VERSION:

'Maverick' is not a story about a school for fighter jocks. It's not a contrived redemption arc for the film's lead 30 years after the first movie. It's not a romance either. It's actually the story of a veteran Navy aviator who is trying to deal with some barely contained PTSD and enough guilt to sink an aircraft carrier. The genius thing about this movie is that it deals with all of those things while still successfully masquerading around as a story about a school for fighter jocks, etc. etc.

'Maverick' might just be the most successful piece of fan service that I've ever witnessed. Tom Cruise -- because let's be real, this was pretty much all him -- could have easily just crammed the main story of the film down our throats at mach and we would have thanked him for the privilege. Say what you will about the rest of his behaviors, the man knows how to make a good action flick now and he clearly brought that to bear in this film. It's everything you want it to be in terms of aircraft porn but it does also happen to be a successful -- if lightweight -- romance film. This is one of the more genius parts of the film in that the addition of Jennifer Connolly's 'Penny' is clearly there as a romance interest for Cruise but as a character, she stands completely on her own. Penny is not a damsel in distress who spends the film pining for her fighter pilot. 

Yes, there's a ... well, I can't even call it a sex scene, it's more like a prelude to a sex scene, and then it very skillfully pivots to one of the film's best conversations, instantly removing your ability to get grumpy about having to watch it rather than MORE JETS!

...Grumpy. About that. What a world!

And, no. 'Take My Breath Away' does not play. That would have been a step too far and the producers knew it. Brief segue: You get the sense that this was a deliberate decision from said producers because the film spends A LOT of time stealing musical cues and songs from the first film. Hell, the movie opens up with -that- synth playing. Trust me, you'll know it when you hear it. This adds credence to my statement that the 'Maverick' crew knew exactly which nostalgia strings to pull and which ones to leave alone.

Moving on...

The other supporting characters in the movie range from 'underutilized' to 'excellent' but none of them are ever bad. Like the first Top Gun, all of the 'Back Seat Pilots', or RIOs, are frequently out of the spotlight in comparison to the actual on-stick pilots (Rooster, Phoenix, and Hangman.) The lone exception to this is Bob, an aviator that somehow manages to stand out in spite of the fact that he was clearly designed as the most vanilla character in the world.

We should all aspire to Bob-hood.

The most stand-outish of the new pilots are clearly Hangman and Rooster. Hangman is, curiously enough, a much closer allegory for Maverick, while Rooster -- the son of Goose -- plays much more closely to Iceman. Everyone ends up kind of hating Hangman until he saves the day and respecting Rooster for being a solid pilot, which...if that ain't irony, I don't know what is.

Speaking of Iceman, yes. There is absolutely a scene in the movie between Maverick and Iceman. It's perfectly handled like everything else in the film and shows us that, after 60 years, Tom Cruise may have just figured out how to act. (It also shows that, even without the use of his voice, Val Kilmer can still keep up with him.)

Are there things that 'Maverick' probably could have done better to further elevate itself? Maybe. Here's the thing though: 'Maverick' is a very, VERY good movie. It's the kind of film that you only get when nearly every aspect is tuned to the Nth degree. There's a recipe that was followed -- knowing Tom Cruise, to the letter -- and this film is what resulted. 'Maverick' had two missions: Entertain, and by proxy, make a crap ton of money.

Based on what I'm seeing in the news, it understood the assignment completely.