Movie Review: 'Top Gun Maverick' is Top Flight Entertainment

I walked into Top Gun Maverick highly skeptical. My experience of the original Top Gun was as an overly polished, jingoistic, cold war era male fantasy. Despite Tom Cruise’s magnetic performance and Anthony Edwards’ terrifically funny performance, I was not a fan of Top Gun. So imagine my surprise when the sequel Top Gun Maverick began getting terrific reviews from critics that I greatly admired. It didn’t completely cure my skepticism but it created a modest optimism.

That modest optimism was then met and exceeded when I finally saw Top Gun Maverick. This is one terrific action movie. High flying suspense, incredible camera and stunt work, flawless special effects, everything you’d hope for on a more than 150 million dollar budget. But what really surprised me was the strong characters. The original was a shallow examination of cocky flyboys and the women trying to save them from themselves. This film smartly spends time with Peter ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and reveals his vulnerability, his empathy, and humanity.

Defiant As Ever

The start of Top Gun Maverick naturally finds our hero defying orders but for a good cause. The experimental plane project he’s been working on is about to be shut down. The plane needs to reach a target speed faster than it ever has if they are going to keep the project going and keep several hundred good people in their job. Thus, Maverick sacrifices himself for his co-workers. He takes the plane up, against the orders of the officious General Cain (Ed Harris), and pulls Mach 10, keeping the project alive while he winds up in hot water.

Maverick appears on the way to a Court Martial but thankfully for him, he has friends in high places. Maverick’s old friend and former rival, Iceman (Val Kilmer), is now the commander of the Pacific Fleet, one of the highest and most decorated positions in the Navy. Having intervened throughout Maverick’s controversial career to get his friend out of a jam, Iceman steps in once more. This time however, it’s with a serious purpose and not merely a favor.

A Well Conceived Mission

An unnamed enemy nation is about to go online with a uranium enrichment facility in violation of rules and treaties worldwide. Iceman is calling on Maverick to return to the Top Gun Academy and train the best fighter pilots in the world for a mission that no pilot, not even Maverick, has ever seen. The mission requires low level flying, barely 100 feet off the ground, and the kind of G-Force that sucks the air out of your lungs. It’s a dangerous and very deadly mission.

Compounding problems for Maverick is that he will have to be a teacher to Rooster (Miles Teller), the hot headed son of his late friend Goose. Maverick and Rooster had a harsh falling out when Maverick tried to stop him from becoming a pilot. Now the two will have to coexist on this dangerous mission and alongside some of the best, most lethal, and most arrogant fellow pilots in the world.

Spectacular Flying Sequences

There is no doubt that the spectacular flying sequences are the reason why Top Gun Maverick succeeds so well. The flying scenes are extraordinary and unlike any we’ve seen in Hollywood movies. The shots from the cockpit, the barrel rolls, the dogfights, are incredibly well staged. Director Joseph Kosinski provides a master class in directing action, creating tension and suspense. Yes, there are perhaps one too many fakeouts in the third act, but everything is so well staged and extraordinary to watch that it’s hard to complain about getting more of it.

What really surprised me about Top Gun Maverick however, was the strong attention to character detail in the relationship between Maverick and Rooster and the romance between Maverick and an old friend, Penny played by Jennifer Connelly. The heated conflict between Maverick and Rooster is more than just a callback to the original film. The heartbreaking divide between Maverick and the son of his closest friend is filled with emotional intensity. The formerly hot-headed hot shot Maverick and the hotheaded young Rooster, played by Miles Teller, coming into his own, are explosive together.

Genuine Movie Star Romance

Even better than that however, is the romance between Maverick and Penny. The chemistry between Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly is off the charts. When these two immaculately chiseled movie stars are on screen together the screen sizzles. But it is more than merely sex appeal, director Kosinski and his three person screenwriting team take time to let the scenes between Maverick and Penny breathe. They allow Cruise and Connelly to create a whole lifetime of history with limited expository dialogue and a whole lot of smoldering glances.

And still, even more compelling than that is a remarkable scene between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. The two have not shared the screen since the original Top Gun but their history as movie stars and personalities carry so much emotional weight. Certainly, the fact that Kilmer has suffered from remarkable health problems, he’s mostly lost his voice to cancer, does make the moments between the ailing Iceman and the aging Maverick take on meaning beyond the characters. Nevertheless, Kilmer still has that movie star gleam in his eye and Cruise’s emotions as he looks at his co-star tell of both a real life appreciation and a depth of implied history for these characters.

Not Without Minor Problems

I’m being quite flowery in my praise for Top Gun Maverick because I did really enjoy it. That said, it’s the kind of lowered bar enjoyment that one applies to big summer blockbuster movies. Top Gun Maverick has plenty of minor issues, cheesy fan service, Jon Hamm’s oppressively cliched pseudo-villain, and other minor plot contrivances. But those issues aren’t enough to take away the pleasure of Top Gun Maverick. This is top flight blockbuster entertainment. It’s piled high with nostalgia but delivered with great care. No one in Top Gun Maverick is resting on the reputation of the sub-par original and they’ve created an absolutely superior sequel.

Top Gun Maverick arrives in theaters on May 26th, 2022.