Top Gun: Maverick

Ok, fine, yes I get it.  I get why this is one of the highest grossing films of all time.  It’s a ton of fun.  The original Top Gun is fun too but at least personally it was never one of my all time favs.  So when I heard about this sequel I didn’t care all that much.  Then I saw the trailer and the jet footage looked crazy and that’s what sold me.

We pick up however many years later and Maverick (Tom Cruise (The Color of Money)) is still in the air force where apparently his job is to push the speed limit of jets.  He finds out his program is being scrapped the day they were going to try to hit Mach 9.  If you know Mav you know he ain’t gonna let this shit ride so of course he takes the jet out against orders and pushes not for Mach 9 but for Mach 10.  Oh that rascal.  As he’s about to be discharged over this insubordination (which is amazing it took this long, how many of these damn stunts has he pulled over the years?) he’s informed he’s needed to train pilots for a dangerous mission blowing up a base that contains material slated for nuclear weapons.  I can’t remember if they actually say which country or organization they’re attacking but seems like the Russians to me.  The only way to complete the mission is to use slightly older jets for some reason and Mav gets the call.  Not because he’s the most qualified but because his ol’ buddy Iceman is now a high ranking Admiral and he insists Mav is the guy.  As you can imagine this sets up tension between Mav and his CO’s from the get go.  And the rest of the picture is training for the mission and the mission itself.  So basically the majority of the film is Top Gun.

The thing about this series is they’re not your typical action movie.  Hell, I don’t even think of them as action movies per se.  They’re more their own special offshoot almost like a kumite film.  You have a group that’s the best of the best at what they do and the bulk of the running time is spent training for a contest.  In this case it’s war and not hand to hand combat.  And there aren’t rounds and rankings.  And they’re not fighting for some monetary prize or the glory of being crowned winner of the tournament and oh nevermind.

Anyway, I like how they handle a few things.  One vitally important aspect is they get Maverick right.  He’s stuck at a relatively low level rank doing test flights and that makes sense.  Considering his tenure and experience he should be running the goddamn air force.  But he’s too rebellious to land in a higher up position and too good to drum out completely so he’s stuck.  It’s a bit sad that he never really matured in thirty six years but it works for the story.  He’s a lively guy who plays by his own rules and has an unbridled passion for flying and yea, that’s who I want to hang out with in a jet fighter movie.  It would’ve been boring if Mav had become a distinguished high ranking military official who had learned to tame his wild side and use moderate action.  No way man, I wanna see Mav strafe his superiors, piss off his students and do other reckless, but harmless, shit.  And that’s what we get.

Instead of bringing back Kelly McGillis Mav has a new/old love interest in Penny (Jennifer Connelly (Dark City)) and according to the web the previous film offhandedly mentions this character so, *sigh*, I guess it’s canon (*eye roll*).  They were together some years ago but it didn’t work out and now Mav is back in Fightertown USA (San Diego) and they hook up again.  Since they were an item previously that cuts through all the sappy meet cute crap and we can jump right into them re-establishing a connection.  Penny has a tweenage daughter who isn’t Mav’s and that’s another bit of smart writing because it shows that Mav gets back with Penny because he wants to and not because he feels guilty about abandoning his kid.  This makes the love between Mav and Penny feel more genuine.  All of this eliminates a cog in the legacy sequel machine and goes towards building this film’s own unique backstory.

Another big appeal is at least half the time this thing does kinda look like an 80’s movie and it’s gorgeous.  They’re mainly emulating Tony Scott’s style with setting suns, blaring light pouring in through blinds, smoky rooms, somewhat simple but very effective camera setups in places like the war room bathed in neon blue light and etc.  Oh, and they do a rad training montage of Mav smoking the other pilots when they first arrive.  All great stuff.  I wish (and hope) more movies rip off this style of using 80’s cinematography as a base line and then layering in modern day techniques.  For a long while now the opposite has been trendy with 80’s motifs peppered in on top of modern filmmaking and this is just one doofus’ opinion, but it would be nice to change things up.

Now there’s also the usual fair share of stupid movie-y stuff too like Maverick only getting the teaching job at Iceman’s behest when absolutely no one else wants him to do it, Mav butting heads hard with his CO throughout, Mav still can’t let go of Goose’s death and so on.  None of it is a deal breaker.

I have to say though Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) should not have made a cameo.  The guy’s still alive so I guess you had to put him in there but his scene where he reassures Mav he’s the right man to train elite pilots for a treacherous mission and to try to get him to be at peace with Goose’s demise is totally unnecessary.  I mean Mav starts to have this same exact conversation again a short time later with Penny underlining how pointless the previous scene is.

But hey, a legacy sequel’s gonna legacy sequel so additionally you got shit like shirtless sweaty dudes playing a team sport on a beach, Mav riding his motorcycle and a cocky asshole vying for top gun.  But the big boner is the inclusion of Rooster (Miles Teller (Bleed for This)), Goose’s son.  You guessed it, he’s in Mav’s class training for the deadly mission.  All this is fine.  It comes with the territory of films like these.  The one thing that irks the shit out of me though is when Rooster pulls the plug on the jukebox at the local bar and starts playing the piano.  He even plays the same fucking Jerry Lee Lewis song that his father played in the previous installment.  It couldn’t be a different song at least?  C’mon.

Anything bad or silly or whatever ends up not really mattering though because as I mentioned at the top the jet footage they got is fuckin’ awesome.  I can’t wrap my head around how much work it must’ve taken to not only get the pilots doing all the eye popping maneuvers but to also get a boatload of footage of the actors in the hot seat zooming around like a fucking boss.  Damn dude.

And the finale.  Holy shit the finale.  The way it’s constructed is fantastic and natural.  The mission starts off smoothly where everyone’s hitting their targets and they’re making good time but then the enemy starts to fly after them and the ensuing chases are heart pumping.  It’s pretty incredible that I was able to keep track of what the hell was going on most of the time because it’s so fast paced and chaotic but man they do a bang up job keeping shit clear and direct.  And on top of everything they continue to raise the stakes and escalate the situation.  I won’t go into much more detail but the filmmakers very cleverly find a way to get Mav back into an old 80’s era fighter jet which is way outgunned compared to the faster, stronger, slicker modern jets the enemy engage him with.  It’s insanely exciting to watch and this entire finale, especially the tail end, is probably one of if not the best dogfight ever put to film.

You know, it’s interesting to compare this picture to comic book movies which are still enjoying unparalleled success today.  Most have some sort of aerial combat sequence involving two or more invincible characters or machines or combo thereof smashing into buildings destroying everything around them.  It’s a fantasy where everything’s made up so the rules are very flexible.  But Top Gun: Maverick is supposed to take place in the real world and they put on a fight in the air that’s at least just as thrilling as anything a comic book movie can dish out.  And yea I know this is still a movie where a bunch of this shit may or may not really be possible but stick with me for a minute.  I think a lot of folks found the display of jet show offery (almost all of which was done for real) a breath of fresh air.  These are your real life superheroes and I think this is part of what resonated with audiences so strongly.  Plus it’s shot well, cast well, acted well, scored well, etc.

So shit, I’m fully on board with Top Gun: Maverick.  It like kinda rules.  And it truly is about Maverick.  He’s a relic of the past showing he can be relevant today.  You may think he doesn’t have anything new to teach us but that’s not the case.  There’s some life in him yet.  This old dog will fly.  Fuckin’ A.