Ever since I was on the edge of my seat watching the last Mission Impossible movie–which I think is peak Tom Cruise and has some of the best set pieces in any movie–I’ve been looking forward to the next Cruise film. I didn’t think that film would be Top Gun: Maverick, but I was excited to watch it in the theaters, especially after seeing excellent ratings from critics and viewers alike.
As we do with movies these days, we went to the theater on a weekday afternoon in the hopes of avoiding unmasked crowds, but there were still around 40 people in the theater. I have to say it was nice to watch a crowd-pleasing film like Top Gun with other people–there’s a certain energy to that environment.
I really enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick. In fact, it may be one of the best sequels ever made. The action is superb, and I was surprised by how emotionally moved I was by several scenes–I didn’t expect to cry multiple times in a movie about airplanes. Also, the music is great.
As a sequel, I appreciate that the film stands on its own. There are some winks and callbacks to the original film, but every single one of them works without any further context. That was great for someone like me who hasn’t watched Top Gun in a very long time.
As for the action, the film does something really clever that I don’t recall from the original. In the original movie, I couldn’t really tell what was happening in the airborne scenes. In Maverick, throughout the entire movie we’re told over and over again what the mission is–the use of repetition really helps the clarity of the big scene once it finally happens.
What did you think of Top Gun: Maverick?
I liked it for all the same reasons you did! But I found this take on Instagram by author Matt Haig to be particularly insightful:
“This is a picture of me leaving the cinema after watching Top Gun: Maverick. It is my new favourite film of this century. I told a friend this at the weekend and they were surprised. But the heart wants what it wants.
The original is my first love. I saw it with two friends both called Gary at the Paragon Cinema (now a Halifax) in a grey damp Newark-on-Trent in 1986. We were 11. I was the shy, awkward one. Those red sunsets and aerial loops set me ablaze. I wanted to fly a plane. I wanted to kiss someone in a blue lit room. I wanted to play volleyball to Kenny Loggins. But it was the emotion that meant something. Here were men – action men – existing in a world of pure emotion.
The first Top Gun is a film about grief and longing and friendship. The second is a film about healing. It isn’t an escapist nostalgia fest. It uses the time passed as an asset. It is about time passing and all the good and bad that comes with it. Illness, regret, death, love, sacrifice, growth, acceptance. And even without Tony Scott directing (he died by suicide in 2012) the tying of emotion to imagery remains. The San Diego skies still bleed red and gold in a kind of macho Fauvist dream. Yes the action is amazing because it is real. Real because in a world of postmodern CGI-heavy quip-laden green-screened mean-nothing blockbusters they are actually flying the planes – but also the action is earned. The action IS character here. Just as Tom Cruise is both movie star and actor and stunt man and saviour of cinema all in one. Miles Teller and Jennifer Connelly are wonderful too. It has a tender heart. This film isn’t 300. It doesn’t care about enemies. We don’t even see the bad guys. The military mission exists as a grand therapy session. It is a study of male friendship and emotion. Tarantino in the 90s missed the point when he said Top Gun was a gay movie. That wasn’t the progressive take he thought. The Top Gun films are about male emotion. Bonding. Friendship. And how to be your true self when the rules want you to conform. And Top Gun: Maverick intensifies that. It does what a great film is meant to do. It takes us out of reality and leaves us in the sky. With really cool planes.”