Top Gun came out at the perfect time for me. I was a senior in high school. The perfect age to enjoy the dogfights and not mind the cheesiness (hey, I even liked the Berlin ballad “Take My Breath Away” which I know Ted and LaDona hate).
Top Gun: Maverick came out at the worst time. Both for the studios (they had to wait two years because of Covid closing theaters down), and for me. I’m now in my 50s, and I’m a lot pickier about what I accept on screen. I wasn’t feelin’ the new Lady Gaga song that was merely played in the closing credits, not the love scene.
The opening 15-minute scene is fun. Maverick (Tom Cruise) gets a plane up to Mach 10. For those that aren’t so well versed in jets, the F-14s they flew in the first movie went Mach 2. This angers his new boss (same as the old boss), a bald guy (Ed Harris, who is smart enough to never show up in another scene). He tells Maverick they want him out of the Navy (even though he earlier said “That stick jockey has balls, I’ll give him that.”). The only way he can stay in, is if he goes to Top Gun in San Diego to train the new pilots for a tough mission.
That’s the first of about 20 scenes that are the exact same scene from the first movie! Now, when this happened with the remake of Footloose, you don’t mind, because it’s a remake. This isn’t a remake, it’s a sequel (over 30 years later, but a sequel nonetheless). Now, when Cruise did the sequel to The Hustler (over 20 years later), they didn’t do the same scenes. And it would have been excusable in that, because there are only so many ways someone can be hustled by a pool shark.
When Maverick goes to a bar, which is owned and operated by Penny (the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly, who’s surprisingly age appropriate), we find out she’s the one referenced in the first movie (when Maverick is getting chewed out for multiple fly-bys, and sleeping with an Admiral’s daughter). There’s no mention of his former love interest, which has bothered some critics, but hey – how can you work all the characters into this?
We do get mention of Goose’s wife, who we find out also died. But their son is alive and well. He’s a hotshot pilot named Rooster, and for some strange reason, he sings “Great Balls of Fire” in the bar, just like his daddy (that has the makings of a Harry Chapin movie right there). This is so the audience can get a glimpse of Maverick looking sad, with a flashback to that scene with Goose singing. Uh, I don’t know about you, but when I go to karaoke bars, I’m not singing the Peter, Paul, and Mary songs my dad listened to. I’d be rockin’ out to more contemporary tunes. Would it have been that hard to still have the flashback scene, but with Rooster singing something more current? If you want to stick with the “ball” them, how about the Accept song “Balls to the Wall” (which is actually an airplane reference) or AC/DC’s “Big Balls” which would certainly make more sense for his fellow pilots surrounding him laughing and singing along. How many young people today would even know that Jerry Lee Lewis song from the fifties? In fact, how would the kid remember it? He was 5 when his dad rocked out to that in a bar and died soon after, but I digress.
I think that, instead of recreating every single scene from the previous Top Gun, I would have preferred small tip-of-the-hat references, like Maverick’s new love interest driving a silver Porsche 911 instead of the silver Speedster we saw chasing Mav down the streets of Pacific Beach.
We all heard the hype about Val Kilmer making a return as Iceman. He came back in two ways. He has one quick scene with Cruise where he merely points at a computer screen with a goofy look on his face. It takes you completely out of the movie (especially what’s written on the computer). And, he makes a return in the form of a younger version – the arrogant pilot of the bunch named Hangman (which I’m guessing is as close as the three screenwriters could get to the call sign Iceman). He’s so over-the-top as a villain, you never buy any redemption his character might get later in the film. Speaking of over-the-top villains, why was Jon Hamm the guy that was constantly rude to Maverick, with a look of constipation on his face? These one-dimensional characters don’t work for me the way they might have had this movie also come out in the ‘80s when I was a teenager.
So Maverick is assigned to train these hotshots, and he does so by playing volleyball shirtless on the beach. Oh, you think I’m joshing? Only slightly. They play shirtless touch football on the beach. Yes, that’s how idiotic this film is, and makes me think the critics on Rotten Tomatoes are even more idiotic, since this is in the high 90% as of this writing.
The mission they’re being trained for involves flying low, through valleys and mountains at a high rate of speed, to hit a small target and blow up the bad guys’ uranium. It was similar to how the Death Star was blown up in Star Wars. Now while they’re trained, Maverick gets up there and easily defeats each one of these pilots in their war games (side note: I’m sure they weren’t called “war games” but I have no clue what they’re called). This leads me to wonder why Maverick isn’t involved in the mission with these dudes. Any guesses whether he’ll eventually be one of the pilots called in to pull it off? Yeah, just about everything in this story is predictable.
The lazy writing with this script even extended to the song selection. Hearing Won’t Get Fooled Again, Slow Ride, and Bang a Gong – all songs we’ve heard a million times on classic rock radio and other movies. Now, it couldn’t have been an accident that we hear David Bowie on the jukebox in Penny’s bar, since Connelly was in Labyrinth with Bowie (fun fact: it was the same year Top Gun came out in 1986).
A friend was giving me a hard time for not liking this movie. As I was explaining how silly all the dialogue was he yelled, “It’s a Top Gun movie! Who cares about that? It’s about the dogfights and how the airplanes were filmed.”
Okay, sure. That was all cool, and they used special cameras inside the planes, they didn’t use green screen and CGI effects, but so what? I’ve seen lots of great movies that use those techniques. You don’t get extra credit because Cruise really flew a plane, or the actors were in jets. The special effects in the first Star Wars were probably just plastic models on string, but we loved it because the story was epic.
About the only thing this movie didn’t take from the original, was somebody saying they felt the need for speed. Even Hangman with a toothpick in his mouth, made me wonder – do pilots that are jerks all have toothpicks? Why not, instead of replicating everything about Iceman, give him a lollipop in various scenes. He can go all Kojak on everyone’s ass (for you young folks, Google that).
Lastly I’d like to say, I’m one of those critics that has argued with many folks over the years about Tom Cruise. I actually think his take on Scientology is a solid one. Okay, okay, I’m joshing. I’ve argued that he’s actually a good actor. Other critics think he’s just a pretty face, and a guy that does his own stunts. Sure, but…I remember being blown away by his acting in his early two movies (Risky Business and the underrated football movie All the Right Moves). He got an Oscar nomination for Born on the 4th of July, Magnolia, and Jerry Maguire. I would have also nominated him for Rain Man and Minority Report. He was great in Edge of Tomorrow, The Color of Money, Mission: Impossible, Tropic Thunder, Interview with a Vampire, Eyes Wide Shut (you’re wrong, that’s actually a good movie), That being said, his performance in this movie was awful. There were about five scenes where he was doing this weird thing in his mouth, that reminded me of the weird quick blinking Richard Gere does when he tries to play angry, or Hugh Grant does when he tries to look flustered and cute. Cruise was trying to look contemplative and sad, but it just looked dopey.
This is a popcorn movie that’s going to make everyone that sees it happy they got what they came for. I just wanted a little more.
2 stars out of 5.