Film Review - Top Gun: Maverick (12A)

 It's not the plane. It's the pilot.

Top Gun (1986) is just one of those films, right? If you saw it back then, it reminds you of a bygone era and a whole other time in your life. Or maybe you were introduced to it twenty years on by a parent who's a fan, and the two of you bonded over roaring jets and romance. Even if like me you saw it once on release and never since, you remember Maverick and Goose and Iceman, and Kenny Loggins' venture to the Danger Zone, and Berlin taking your breath away... along with 'you can be my wingman' and 'take me to bed or lose me forever' and 'the need for speed'. But the sad truth is this: when you watch it again today, the film playing out on the screen simply isn't as good as the one in your head. It's a series of iconic moments, for sure, many well directed by the late Tony Scott, but they punctuate a ropey screenplay the deficiencies of which are smothered by Harold Faltermeyer's incessant score. Sorry - but a perfect film it was not.

Here's the good news...

Top Gun: Maverick is as good as the Top Gun you remember, and way better than the one you actually saw. 

Fans have waited thirty-six years, two of them due entirely to Covid, for this sequel, but uncannily, neither Tom Cruise nor Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell seem to have aged half that much. 'Mav' has matured for sure over the intervening decades, but he's progressed here no further than a Captain's rank due to that signature streak of rebellion. Ironically, it's his refusal to be boxed in by conventional thinking that gets him called back into the Top Gun program. His job is to train the most able strike pilots in the US Navy for an 'other level' mission - the kind from which there's no chance of returning without 'other level' flying. That already demanding task is complicated by the presence on the squad of a pilot who makes him confront the most painful memory of his past. (Yes, you know the one I'm talking about.)

The success of Top Gun: Maverick (and five days into its cinema run it's already a certified smash) is due to its ticking of the two boxes necessary: (1) provide nostalgia, (2) be more than halfway good. The nostalgia is there in abundance, at the movie is very good indeed. Director Joseph Kosinski, Cruise and team have pulled off the demanding trick of embedding what worked in the original in a better, more satisfying framework. So you get all that reminds you of '86, be it rock-and-roll piano classics, ripped torsos, or ill-advised helmet-free motorbike riding while wearing Aviator sunglasses. You get attractive, charismatic people falling in love to a San Diego sunset (it's Jennifer Connelly this time, not Kelly McGillis - seems Charlie and Maverick were just a summer fling after all, which is sad). You even get the ambient magic-hour skies of Scott's cinematography; the film's opening shots may have you wondering if it's a visually upgraded version of its predecessor. Yes - you get all of that, but significantly more.

There are two main ways in which Maverick betters classic Top Gun. The first is its storytelling. The screenplay this time has a honed and streamlined three-act structure with nothing tagged on or glossed over. Once we're reacquainted with our main hero, the new hotshots are introduced, sufficiently sketched, and set into sky-high motion. Both mission objectives and character dynamics are established with ease, while the connections with the past are woven in neatly, adding poignancy and fun while never overwhelming the new stuff. Stakes are high for these pilots - more so than last time - and we're not allowed to forget that for a second. As for the story's emotional content, it's got more depth than you'd reasonably expect, along with tear-brushing moments that are properly earned. The Connelly character has links to the Maverick of 1986, helping flesh him out, while the relationship between Mav and Miles Teller's 'Rooster' provides the film a strong dramatic core - one that will resonate particularly with long-time fans.

The film's second and huge advantage is one for which the first cannot be blamed - advances in technology that make the flight sequences fully astonishing. Everything going on in the air has been shot in the air - within the cockpit and without. Forget greenscreen, you feel these characters' responses to the G-force, along with their sweat and panic and exhilaration. If you seat yourself in an IMAX theatre to watch it (and I strongly suggest you do), you'll feel as well hear the engines running through you, with cinematography that's never less than awe-inspiring. It's all visually coherent as well; whatever speeds these pilots achieve, however much is going on, you're never in doubt as to whose plane is doing what, and precisely why. (That's due to sharp screen-writing in the exposition scenes, it should be noted, as well as head-spinning  camerawork.) And you're never once in doubt regarding the consequences if the pilots stuff it up, due to that Mission: Impossible in-production solidity that Cruise helped bring to the project. For anyone who's reached CGI saturation point, here's a perfect summer movie antidote. 

Ultimately this is a film that combines the old with the new to great effect, something exemplified most perfectly, perhaps, in how composer Hans Zimmer blends the best elements of Faltermeyer's original score with his stirring but more sparingly used new one. You'll feel the warm glow of familiarity while experiencing something vital and new. That's true of the entire film, including its willingness to sprinkle 1980s cheese onto its crucial character moments. It's appropriate - Top Gun's charms were always cheesy. But to make something both knowingly old-school and ground-breakingly fresh, that takes some doing. Top Gun: Maverick pulls it off with the roaring success of an F-35 fighter jet. Set your course for the danger zone now. This aerial highway won't disappoint.

Gut Reaction: Enthralled, and I clung to stuff a lot. And there was me, not even considering myself a fan!

Memorable Moment: Ice melts your heart.

Ed's Verdict: 9/10. This score might even rise on a subsequent viewing. As popcorn movies go, this is unsurpassed by anything we've seen in years. If Spider-Man: No Way Home had the 18-35 crowd returning to cinemas post-pandemic, this is bringing back their older relatives. And the reward for young and old is a cinematic treat.