You don’t see this every day. Top Gun: Maverick starts with a personal introduction from Tom Cruise, welcoming back movie-goers who want to see a summer blockbuster on a big screen in a theater.
That’s followed by a credit sequence that copies the 1986 original, as the familiar theme from Harold Faltermeyer surges over the audience.
Thirty-six years later, Pete “Maverick” Michell is still the best damn fighter pilot in the Universe. He’s the guy you call on when the best of the best need to learn a few things.
But he’s also so incorrigible that he’s never advanced beyond the rank of captain. His one-time rival, Iceman, now an admiral, is his protector, keeping Maverick from being discharged or thrown in the brig.
He’s called back to the Top Gun school to train 12 hot-shot pilots for one of those near-impossible bombing missions, familiar from World War II movies.
The target is a uranium enrichment plant that could endanger NATO stability, (set up by what country? Tactfully, nobody says.) The pilots will have to navigate through mountainous terrain, radar, enemy anti-aircraft fire and G forces to slam a target that looks like it’s the size of a garage door.
The young pilots now include a woman, but they are still cocky and ultra-competitive. They give themselves fancy handles, like “Hangman”, “Coyote”, and “Payback”. One flier, Bob, is known as “Bob.”
One of the group, though, (played by Miles Teller) is the son of Maverick’s late, lamented best friend “Goose”. Known by the handle “Rooster”, he still bears a grudge over the death of his father, besides other sore spots in his history with Maverick.
Once again, we see Maverick zipping down the highway on his motorcycle. The young actors (and Cruise) show off their ripped physiques in a beach-football sequence, rather than volleyball.
Director Joseph Kosinski follows in the footsteps of the late Tony Scott, with a host of eye-and-ear-blasting aerial sequences. Incidentally, Cruise is proud that he put his cast into real fighter planes—no green-screen or CGI.
Like any other sequel, the movie repeats the stuff we loved from the first film. But that also blends well with the movie’s dramatic focus, of Maverick coping with the ghosts and mistakes of his past and trying to remind the brass that battles need to be fought by real men and women, not drones.
As we know from umpteen Mission:Impossible movies, Cruise’s charisma and his physique are weathered but intact. From the old film, Val Kilmer appears briefly as Iceman. And while you may be wondering if Meg Ryan might turn up—she played Goose’s wife—we are told that her character has died.
And—action-movie-sexism alert!-- Maverick’s new leading lady is Jennifer Connolly (nearly ten years younger than Cruise) playing the owner of the pilots’ favorite hang-out.
The film feels a little bloated, running to nearly 2 hours 20 minutes, but it’s not a fatal error.
Top Gun: Maverick isn’t a great sequel—like Godfather II, Road Warrior or Empire Strikes Back. But it’s a good sequel.
I feel the need—the need to give the film four Oak Leaf Clusters out of five.
