'Top Gun: Maverick' Flies High With Fan Service
Starring Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, Val Kilmer, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Manny Jacinto
Rated PG-13
Action, Drama
Run time: 2 hr, 11 min
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
In theaters May 27, 2022
Top Gun looms so large in pop culture that I was of two minds when I heard it was getting a reboot. On the one hand, why was a sequel needed for a film that stood on its own, complete, for decades? On the other, how on earth did it take them this long to do it? There were relatively low expectations going into this movie, partially because I didn’t have the same nostalgic pull to Top Gun that a lot of others in my generation do, and partially because I keep feeling let down by a lot of the movies I’m seeing in theaters recently. As my friend described it, she wanted planes to go fast and to have fun watching it. Thankfully, that’s exactly what Maverick gave us, and it didn’t try to do much else. And we didn’t need it to.
The story of Top Gun is brought into present day as we see Maverick (Cruise) is still breaking rules and still flying planes. When he believes he’s being grounded and discharged, it turns out instead that he’s being sent back to Top Gun, but this time as an instructor. He has to work with a new class of hot shots, including Rooster (Teller) and Hangman (Powell). We get to see a few familiar faces from the first installment, specifically Ice (Kilmer), and have some serious moments of nostalgia, especially when you factor in that Rooster isn’t just any pilot - he’s the son of Goose, Maverick’s wingman once up on a time.
There aren’t many moments of surprise or innovation when it comes to Maverick, but that makes it even more crisp and focused. It doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t, so it doesn’t stretch itself too thin and sticks to what it knows. While this may sound condescending, it’s actually high praise. It’s so rare lately to find a movie that is very aware of exactly what it needs to be for an expectant audience. We have the same dynamics among the trainees, including the tension that walks the fine line between rivalry and homoerotic. We get a romantic entanglement for Maverick, and this one is much more believable and comfortable than the one that was forced into the original. And of course, we have the overwhelming vague threat of war that only the pilots in Top Gun academy can save us from. What more could you ask for?
While this movie isn’t perfect, and not even one of my top five films of the year, I walked out of that theater feeling so satisfied with what we got to see. Maverick is just barely too long, and has a handful of seemingly false endings that made it drag on. There are a handful of cheesy lines, but I think that is almost a requirement for a movie involving fictional military stories. And to be completely candid, Miles Teller really, really bothers me for reasons I cannot even fully comprehend, but this film almost made me get over that fact. We get a delightful performance from both Connelly and Hamm as well, both on their own and against Cruise. There is one thing I can’t ignore after seeing both Top Guns this week: however questionable and problematic he may as a person, Tom Cruise is a movie star. And he is not going to let us forget it.