Anthony's Film Review - Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Even though 36 years have passed, the second Top Gun movie still captures the excitement of the original...

Why was Top Gun in 1986 a good movie? Plenty of reasons. It presents the thrill of being in a military unit, specifically a U.S. naval air force. It presents the trials and tribulations of training for the military elite, specifically through the TOPGUN naval aviation training program. And it makes it all seem exciting, such that people in the audience may be inspired to enlist in the United States Navy. (But should you manage to get into the real-life TOPGUN school, don't quote the movie while you're there, or else you'll pay a $5 fine each time.) Top Gun is one of those movies that works totally well on its own, without ever requiring a sequel even if a sequel is totally possible and doable.

After decades of never seeing Top Gun get a sequel, it eventually gets one. Because Top Gun: Maverick is a legacy sequel rather than an immediate sequel, one may naturally wonder if it is worth seeing. After all, Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is in his late 50s rather than his early 20s. Val Kilmer as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky is also decades older. Well, the answer to that question, in my opinion, is that it's worth it, certainly for the chance to relive the first Top Gun. The beginning of Top Gun: Maverick hints that it is going to be a lot like the original movie 36 years earlier. The intro text that begins 1986's Top Gun is repeated in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick, and the on-screen opening credits appear to be in the same font as in the first movie. Plus, there are shots of fighter jets taking off from aircraft carriers, with the Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone" adding to the excitement.

On the surface, the plot of Top Gun: Maverick follows the same core structure as the original Top Gun. Both movies are about training an elite group of fighter pilots to determine who is the best of the best, and it is followed by the same characters going into actual battle. The differences are relatively minor. For one thing, Maverick is now the instructor instead of a trainee like he had been thirty years ago. Also, in the original movie, the real military mission occurs unexpectedly after the end of training. Here, in Top Gun: Maverick, there is a crucial military mission to destroy an enemy's uranium enrichment site, and the purpose of the training is twofold: prepare the pilots for this mission, and determine which six of the 12 pilots will fly the mission and which six will stand by as reserves. This means the training exercises have to be tailored specifically to preparations for this operation.

The 12 pilots represent a diverse group of dedicated men and women. One of them is an arrogant hotshot who goes by the callsign Hangman (played by Glen Powell). There's also a woman whose callsign is Phoenix (played by Monica Barbaro) and pilots with nicknames like Payback, Fanboy, Coyote, Halo, and Yale. There's even a nerdy-looking and shy weapons expert who simply goes by the callsign Bob (played by Lewis Pullman). But the most important character among these pilots is Rooster (played by Miles Teller). He is the son of Goose, Maverick's wingman back in the day who is now deceased. Rooster is following his father's footsteps, though he also has emotional baggage that could jeopardize the mission.

When it comes to the action, there is no difference between the scenes involving training exercises and scenes involving the real military mission, other than the fact that weapons are actually fired for the latter. It is just fun to watch fighter jets do risky death-defying maneuvers and sail through the air beyond the speed of sound, while hearing the pilots communicate with each other. What's cool is that computer-generated imagery is not involved here. The filmmakers insisted that actual fighter jets are captured on film. It's one thing to do that in the 1980s because CGI didn't exist back then. It's another to still do it because CGI just doesn't beat the real thing.

You may recall that Top Gun in 1986 included scenes set outside the context of military training and operations. They mainly involved off-duty recreation in bar, restaurant, and beach settings, along with romance between Tom Cruise's character and a lady. Well, it's all repeated here, albeit with variations. Miles Teller's Rooster plays a piano and sings "Great Balls of Fire" just like his father Goose had done. While the old movie had a beach volleyball scene, this new movie depicts football on a beach. As for the romance, it was Maverick and Kelly McGillis's Charlotte back in 1986, and now in 2022 it's Maverick and a bar owner named Penny, played by Jennifer Connelly. These scenes have the same purposes as before: providing a break from military life and giving the characters a little extra human dimension.

Given that the original Top Gun stands well on its own, Top Gun: Maverick is technically not a necessary sequel. At the same time, I wouldn't call it an unnecessary sequel, because it was made quite well. It's a good movie simply by repeating what the original one did. I know it sounds strange for me to say that, because when a sequel is simply a repeat or rehash of the first movie, it often doesn't work as well. Then again, we're talking about a 36-year-gap between movies, not a few years. Maybe the passage of time allows the old-timers to be ready to reexperience the original with a new movie and lets the new-timers get interested in Top Gun through its sequel first. But I'm not here to debate whether Top Gun: Maverick needed to be made. I'm just here to decide whether it's a good movie or not, and based on what I've described above, I give it positive marks.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Top Gun: Maverick, visit the Internet Movie Database.

In addition, check out my review of Top Gun.