With over a billion dollars at the box office, worldwide appeal, and critical praise from all corners, Tom Cruise‘s mega-hit Top Gun: Maverick is the unexpected hit of the year (maybe decade – too early to tell) that has (nearly) everyone in agreement. It’s one of the finest sequels ever made, both a love letter to the original and a masterful redirect to all things new. Plus, it’s just a great time at the movies. Five stars great? Why not?
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, who helmed Cruise in the 2013 sci-fi thriller Oblivion, Top Gun: Maverick is not a film straining for authenticity or even credulity, keeping inline with its glitzy predecessor by romanticizing what is essentially the weapons of war and the people who pilot them. Is that wrong? Certainly not. Heroes have long been made larger than life in tales of battle since there have been battles to tell tales about. The original Top Gun, released in 1986, famously increased recruitment into military service by 500% (and they’re hoping it works again this time around), with plenty of young viewers looking to be airborne heroes. I was in the theater when the original hit my local screens, and I felt it, too. For a minute or so.
But skip all that. Doing a sequel to a film nearly thirty five years old is risky. Yet doing a sequel to Top Gun …eh …probably less so, and while there is a huge built-in audience having grown up on Cruise movies, there are no doubt more who don’t even know an original exists. Yet Cruise and company manage to balance Maverick on a sturdy line between the two groups, which I think is the best thing going about the movie itself. Here’s a “nostalgia” flick that at first glance feels shamefully so, jumping on the bandwagon of what seems like an endless vapid caravan of “hey, remember that?” movies in release. Yet, Maverick does something different, steering hard left from the formula, refusing to throw at the screen a non-stop barrage of fan service–which it so easily could have–instead opting for a more subtle lean into the past that with great purpose influences the present.
And don’t think I’m overreaching. Purpose is the right word. It’s the word I kept thinking about while staring up at the action. I didn’t feel that with the first film, which I watched again the night before seeing this one. With Maverick, I could see that the writers wanted to say something more, and maybe it’s not all that much deeper, but the themes are, and I really like that this was important to the people making it. Want some examples? Just compare the training of the pilots at the Top Gun school. See what it means to them and where it leads. Compare the volleyball game to the football game and why each are being played. And most particularly, the weight on Maverick himself in relation to why he’s done what he’s done with Goose’s son (Miles Teller). This is good storytelling, and brings me straight to Cruise.
He’s really good. I mean, Cruise has consistently been good, but here, he does it very good. Cruise has never been one for immersing himself into a role, at least that’s what audiences think. We see him, we see Tom Cruise, right? There’s not much difference between him as Ethan Hawke or him as Jack Reacher or him as whatever action role he’s in. Yet back in the pilot seat as Pete Mitchell, Cruise transcends, and you don’t quite realize it until about a third of the way when you become fully invested in what this film is doing. Cruise as Maverick is Maverick as Cruise. When he’s sitting at the bar older and wiser than those around him, you see Maverick and understand Cruise. This is a man with a long past, a legend in the field (or air), who has redefined not only the business he is in but the role he has taken on. It’s a responsibility he owes those who follow him. Think how rare that is that he not only understands that but commits to it. At the start of the film, before the actual movie even begins, there’s Tom Cruise talking to the audience, thanking them for coming to see the movie, telling us that what we’re about to see is real planes doing real flying and that he wants us to enjoy it because it was made for us. The way he says that … for us … feels true.
There’s a lot about the film that feels that genuine, including the now famous moment with Val Kilmer, which I don’t need to get into. It’s effective, it’s honorable and it elevates the film. Jennifer Connelly is terrific even as she’s wedged into an archetype love interest role, clearly understanding what her part in this is–it’s romantic, she’s breathtaking, and she makes what she deserves feel earned. I liked Teller, too, taking what also could have been a dimensionless part and making it rich with emotion and humor. He channels Goose (Anthony Edwards) with eerie brilliance.
Are there flaws? Absolutely. But what does it matter? When Rooster and Maverick escape a seemingly impossible situation in an ancient F-14 Tomcat–the same kind of plane Maverick flew three decades earlier–you don’t question the why’s and how’s. You smile with glee and wonder at the sheer spectacle of it all and the dynamic presence of Cruise who once again delivers what should be considered his best yet. Actually, you’ll do that often.