With all due respect to the late Tony Scott, 2022's Top Gun: Maverick is a better film than the original. The story is still very softball, playing within the bounds of a very narrowly defined fantasy world, but the use of practical effects, especially having the actors actually in jets, push this film into genuinely good territory.
Tom Cruise returns to the role he originated twenty-six years ago. Still a hotshot flyboy, now he's tasked with training a team of young pilots to take on an impossible mission: a strategic strike at an unnamed country.
It's kind of amusing how successfully the film avoids any and all specifics as to the enemy country's identity. We hear no names of people or places, no scraps of language, we don't see any flags or insignia except a generic red bird painted on the side of an old jet. It's amazing because so much of the last, very exciting, portion of the film hinges on the details of fighting this nameless enemy.
Before that, we get a lot of downtime in my hometown, San Diego. Maverick spends some time connecting with the new kids and with his old flame played by Jennifer Connelly.
In her first appearance in the film, in her bar, you can hear David Bowie's "Let's Dance" in the background, presumably reminding the audience that her big star-making role was opposite Bowie in Labyrinth, released the same year as Top Gun. Connelly was not in Top Gun, Kelly McGillis was the love interest. Where's McGillis? According to Wikipedia, her last role was in 2018 Lifetime movie called Maternal Secrets. My suspicious is the makers of Top Gun: Maverick ruthlessly aimed to make the movie pure indulgence--Connelly has aged a lot better than McGillis.
It's true, Val Kilmer's not looking great these days, but, on the other hand, he's a much bigger star and his ordeal with cancer has garnered more public attention. Still, he only has one scene in Maverick.
I do find it curious that Kilmer's health would not permit him to take part in the Willow series yet he managed to show up in Maverick. I suspect he knew something about the people and the intentions behind both projects. I forgot to write about the latest episode of Willow which featured Christian Slater in a small role--obviously in a modified part originally written to be Madmartigan, Kilmer's character. The show is reminding me a little of She-Hulk (unsurprising since it shares some writers) as it seems often to be written by people who not only hate action scenes, they hate anyone who likes action scenes. The same could certainly not be said for Top Gun: Maverick, thank God.
You seeing this, Disney? One of these made a billion dollars, one of these can't scratch the top ten in the ratings. You really want to keep doing this?
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A pixie stick's composed of swirling clouds.
Ascension blanked before the mind of God.
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The final words were wrote in future's past.
Beyond the reach of stars the spell is cast.
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