I don’t know if TOP GUN:MAVERICK holds the record for the time elapsed between the original and the sequel, but if waiting over three decades results in a film as terrific as this, I hope filmmakers everywhere will at least consider taking their own sweet time when making sequels. This is an adrenalin-junkie’s fantasy, tightly paced, with enough story to keep the plot moving and enough macho sentiment to wring a tear and a cheer from its audience.
We pick up the action with Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), and, yes, he’s still a captain after all these years, getting ready to hit Mach 9 in his latest Navy project. It’s an opportunity to re-acquaint ourselves with the iconic leather jacket (different patches), the equally iconic motorcycle, and for a camera pan over old photographs of the original TOP GUN crew, not to mention Mr. Cruise’s still buff physique. As he’s speeding through the Mojave Desert on his way to fly at Mach 9, his team is being told that the project has been cancelled, because drones are the wave of the future, and the cocky pilots of Top Gun are soon to be a thing of the past. This being a Tom Cruise film, Maverick ignores the cancellation, climbs into the sleek jet, and promptly does Mach 10, to the bemusement of Admiral Chester “Hammer” Cain (Ed Harris).
This, of course, is just a prelude to the real story.
That would be when Maverick is ordered to take a rag-tag group of the Navy’s finest pilots and train them for an impossible mission (pun intended) in very hostile, unnamed territory. It’s a righteous mission, lacking in either jingoism or an imperialist cast, thus palatable for those of many political persuasions. The hitch is that one of the elite candidates for the final cull is Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, son of Maverick’s wingman who died while flying with our hero. There is, of course, tension. There is also tension with Lt. Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin (Glenn Powell), who is the cockiest of group, which is saying a great deal, rivaling even Maverick in his post-adolescent heyday. He’s convinced he should be the team leader as the chosen few wend their way through a sinuous canyon. Make that >in< a sinuous canyon to avoid the SAM missiles and make their way in less than three minutes to the bombing target and then straight up the side of a mountain while neither crashing into it nor losing consciousness as massive G-forces attempt to shoot their spines into their medulla oblongatas.
We never allowed to forget that this is a Tom Cruise vehicle. He speaks in clipped, serious tones and also pushes military boundaries with that ci-mentioned cockiness, much to the slow-burning disapproval of the mission commander, Adm. Beau ‘Cyclone’ Simpson (Jon Hamm), whose other job, aside from disapproval, is reminding Maverick that while he never became an admiral or a senator, he is still under the personal protection, much to Cyclone’s chagrin, of Adm. Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky (Val Kilmer), who now runs the entire Pacific Theater.
There is also the love interest. This time Jennifer Connelly as an old flame with a cockiness to match Maverick’s. She also has a spunky tween daughter (Lyliana Wray) brought in to lighten the mood with a well-crafted quip. There is some chemistry between Connelly and Cruise, but the real love story here is that between Maverick and Rooster, as Maverick sorts through his guilt and Rooster his resentments before the inevitable entente. The only thing wrong with that moment is knowing how manipulative it is designed to be, and falling for it anyway.
There is also the inevitable beefcake, with a call-out to the beach sports of the original, and kudos all around for the obvious effort put in by all concerned, male and female, to bring us such gloriously chiseled beach bods going through their motions in the golden California sun.
You see, this time there are ladies on the Top Gun team, but, and this is a much-appreciated twist, the women are suitably macho (macha?), while the shrinking violet of the group is Lt. Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd (Lewis Pullman) tasked with also being socially awkward and kind of a klutz on the ground. He’s adorable.
So is the plot, which goes through its expected motions with flair. That includes a paean to Kilmer, swathed in an ascot and barely ambulatory or able to speak, but still with a twinkle in his eye and the old Iceman machismo. In a tender interlude, he holds his own with Cruise in both charisma and sheer force of personality. In any other film, it would be the high point. But this, as I’ve noted, is a Tom Cruise vehicle.
Hence, the natural stopping point, the ending that would make poignant sense and give closure to Maverick’s life and legacy is, instead, merely the prelude to one of the best dogfights in cinema. Howard Hughes, wherever he might be, is no doubt suffering paroxysms of jealousy at this achievement. This sequence is so good that, Stockholm Syndrome-like, we willingly suspend disbelief at the sheer audacity of it in favor of lapping it up and wanting more. Which we get. And then some. Is it because there was no CGI used, and the actors are actually undergoing the thrills and perils of flight of this intensity? I can’t say for sure, but I do know that the effects of altitude and multiple Gs have an effect on the human face that is, how shall I say, unique.
TOP GUN:MAVERICK is unabashed, and unapologetic in its pursuit of revving its audience into a frenzy. And it does. See it on the biggest screen you can.
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