In “Top Gun: Maverick”, Pete Mitchell (Maverick) is often summoned face-to-face with the Admiral. Pete, after all these years in the Navy, has more than 35 people, but is stuck in captainship as to who is counting. He’s one of the best fighter pilots ever, but the US military hierarchy can be a dangerous political business, and Maverick isn’t a politician. In front of his boss, he tends to salute, laugh, and push his career into the middle of the table like a stack of poker chips. He is all-in. always.
The first such meeting is with Ed Harris’s weathered brass chunk, Admiral Chester Cain. He has his own impressive in-movie flight record. (Without the “right thing”, there wouldn’t be a “Top Gun”.) He seems to tell Pete that the game is over. Thanks to new technology, flyboys like him are almost out of date.
Based on this scene, the movie may seem like a meditation on American air power during the time of the drone war, but it has to wait for the next sequel. Pete still has work to do. It’s officially an educational job, but I’ll explain that. Conversations with Cain are not as red herring as meta-commentary. Pete is Tom Cruise’s avatar, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, and the central question posed by this movie is the combat pilot rather than the movie star’s relevance. It has nothing to do with the need for. With this cool new technology at hand, you can binge 37 episodes of Silicon Valley without leaving the couch. Do you really need a guy or movie like this?
Director Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick” (“Tron: Legacy”) answers positively with a confident and aggressive swagger that looks like overcompensation. There are no signs of anxiety about Cruise’s performance or Maverick’s performance. On the brink of 60 years, he still projects the nimble, cheeky, forever boyish charm that conquered box office revenue in the 1980s.
At the time, in Tony Scott’s “Top Gun,” Pete was a cheeky start-up that was striving to stand out in the friendship and competition of the Super Elite Top Gun program. He seduces instructor Charlie (Kelly McGillis), locks the corner with Iceman (Val Kilmer), the enemy of the golden boy, and loses his best friend and radar interceptor Goose (Anthony Edwards). I did. Ronald Reagan was president and the Cold War was in its glorious final stages, but “Top Gun” wasn’t really a picture of combat. It was essentially a sports movie adorned with Battle Gear, a group of guys doing showboats, talking trash, and trying to surpass each other.
The times have changed a little. Pete is now an instructor and has been called to the North Island Naval Air Station to train a squad of enthusiastic young aviators for urgent and dangerous missions. The atmosphere of the Flats House in the 80’s has been toned down and the pilots are a more diverse and less uncomfortable group.
“Top Gun”: Maverick’s Return
Tom Cruise re-enters the air with the long-awaited sequel to the 80’s action blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick.
- review: Our critics write that the central issue raised by the film has nothing to do with the need for combat pilots in the drone era, rather than the relevance of movie stars.
- Tom Cruise: When superheroes dominate box office revenue, the movie industry is betting on brave actors to bring adults back to the theater.
- New class: Thirty-six years after Iceman, Hollywood, and Cougar, a new team of colorful nicknamed characters is suitable for the sequel.
- Your burning question: How similar is it to the original? Who is back? Who is absent? I have an answer.
One advantage of the long gap between chapters is that many credited screenwriters are free to fill in or leave blank. Over the last few decades, Pete has seen a lot of fighting — both Bosnia and Iraq mentioned — and pursued on and off romance with Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly). Now he finds her working in a bar near the base and the old sparks rekindle. She has a teenage daughter (Liliana Rey) — Maverick is not a dad — and a globally tired attitude that matches Pete’s characteristic ironic and emotional blend.
Other reminders of the past include Goose’s son Rooster (Miles Teller) and Iceman himself, who was promoted to Admiral status and protected his former rivals. Kilmer’s short appearance has a special heart. With the exception of the 2021 documentary “Val”, he hasn’t seen much on the screen since he lost his voice with a cancer in his throat. Watching a cruise with him in a tranquil scene is as sad and exciting as anything in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The first “Top Gun” developed against the backdrop of the superpower conflict. Horrible-mostly off-screen-there was the possibility of hovering real-world enemies (the Soviet Union if you forgot) and nuclear apocalypse. This time around, there’s a real live skirmish with an unidentified enemy, a mysterious entity that owns a super-tech aircraft that is building “unlicensed” weapons facilities in every mountainous region. The name is not mentioned, only “enemy”. Being cautious is a little strange. Who or what are you supposed to fight? China? (In this economy?) Taliban? Netflix? COVID?
it doesn’t matter. Once the mission begins, you will not see the face of the enemy pilot. This just confirms the feeling that “Top Gun: Maverick” says nothing about the advocacy of old-fashioned film values in the face of geopolitics and nihilism in the streaming era.
Is the defense successful? The action sequence is tense and vibrant. The flight reminds me that it was one of the big thrills of the movie from almost the beginning. The story is a mixed bag. Despite the emotional cross-flow and physical dangers that plague poor Maverick-his career, his life of love, and his duty to the memory of his dead friends, not to mention G Force and Flake- Dramatic bets seem strangely low.
The junior pilot establishes a kind of children’s theatrical production of the first movie. The cockfight between Maverick and Iceman is reflected in the rivalry of Rooster and the arrogant Hangman (interestingly Glen Powell of Kirmeresque).We play a shirtless touch football game on the beach, but this is not a perfect match Original volleyball game Sweaty camp subtext. There are some impressive support performances. Especially from Basir Saladin, Monica Barbaro, and always solid Jon Hamm, as Admirals who stick to the mud like a book, the world they live in is untextured and common.
From time to time, Kocinski seems to reach for an updated version of the sun-kissed, high-style 80’s aesthetic, where “Top Gun” is so easily and elegantly represented. He came up with the brave, cluttered, sub-limited, bland basics found in the work of real pop quarts like Scott, his brother Ridley, James Cameron, and Michael Bay. Thing.
To put it another way, “Top Gun: Maverick” is not a great movie. It’s a thin, overly powerful, and sometimes very fun movie. But it’s also, and perhaps more importantly, a serious statement in the dissertation that the movie is and should be great. Needless to say, it’s old enough to remember when it happened. Because of Pete, I’m about as old as Maverick.
Top Gun: Maverick
It is rated as PG-13. Execution time: 2 hours 11 minutes. At the theater.
