My Review of "Top Gun (1986)"

Top Gun (1986) is one of those movies that people say is a classic but they never really explain why. I've seen this movie back in the 80's but I was too young to really understand it. Watching it again in 2022 gave me such a different outlook of this movie from what I remembered.

The movie opens up with an explanation of what Top Gun is. It's basically an elite fighter pilot school created in 1969 for the US navy air force. Only the top of the top pilots are selected to enroll into this school.

Then we jump to our hero, Maverick. He's a cocky wildcard pilot with a heart of gold. His partner Goose are up in the air doing a test flight along with their fellow pilots Cougar and Merlin. During their routine flight there are some rogue planes that enter the test area.

After scaring off the enemy planes Cougar becomes shellshocked by the whole ordeal. Unable to fly the plane back to base and running out of fuel, Maverick makes it his duty to go back to Cougar and help him fly home. In doing so Maverick showed bravery but was also reckless and not following orders.

Cougar was so broke up about the situation that he decides to leave the air force. He was the best pilot there so now that slot goes to Maverick. Now it's Maverick's chance to go to Top Gun.

Being as cocky as Maverick is, he makes a name for himself immediately by declaring himself the best pilot of the bunch. All of them are basically alpha males so they're all jockeying to become the best pilot.

This movie is basically about Maverick chasing after that number one slot at Top Gun and falling into a relationship with his teacher. It's really absurd and ridiculous and only now I realize it.

The enemy in this movie, Iceman doesn't even seem like a bad guy. He's right throughout the movie. Maverick is a danger to all of them because of his erratic behavior in and out of his plane. I don't really blame him for being the way that he is. There isn't even much of a relationship or rivalry between Maverick and Iceman in this movie. I always remembered there was a bigger rivalry but it doesn't take much of the movie.

Maverick's relationships with his teacher and Goose are the prime focus of the movie. They basically set it up to make it seem like Goose is pretty much like his brother. The relationship with the teacher is all over the place and weird in some ways. They do have some fun in their little banters though.

One of the interesting things about this movie is the amount of big stars in the cast. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the actors had just first started off with this movie and later became bigger stars. It's funny to see how they were in small roles in this movie. It's similar to the Days of Thunder movie I reviewed not too long ago.

This movie also must have cost an arm and a leg to make. CGI wasn't big back in those times so the shots they took of fighter planes must have cost a lot of money to get done. The fuel prices alone would be crazy. You can tell there was huge production costs to this movie. It feels like a big budget movie too.

Overall, I liked this movie but I wouldn't watch it again. The sheer amount of cheese just oozes off this film. I like corny but there is a lot of it in this movie that you have to be in the right mood to watch it. At least it sets me up to watch Maverick which has just popped into movie theatres this year. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It was the same wild ride I remembered in the 80s but a lot of the context has changed in my mind.