Top Gun is a 1986 action film about students at the United States Navy’s elite fighter weapons school who compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learning a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.
The two most iconic moments in Top Gun, a movie about fighter pilots, have nothing to do with flying. One is a barroom pick-up scene where a rebellious young pilot recruits his pals into singing a song to woo a woman and the other is a bunch of shirtless men playing volleyball on a beach. Watching the new trailer for the next Top Gun movie, it appears that with the upcoming sequel, returning star Tom Cruise – who has since become Hollywood’s Chairman of Board for risking life and limb in order to entertain – is looking to make the flying just a little more memorable. I don’t need to tell you. See for yourself:
I was in theaters the week Top Gun released and I still remember the sort of cultural shift the movie had on audiences, the MTV music video format had come to the big screen with one of the decade’s hottest new stars in full throttle steaming up the corners. It was absolutely charged with energy, packed with brawny men, sleek jet fighter combat, and a thunderous pop music soundtrack, finding ways to satisfy everyone in the audience. Yes, it was unabashedly unashamed of its fluff but it committed like so few had before, and with director Tony Scott at the helm and Cruise leading the charge, it was an unstoppable box office force that has, clearly, had lasting impact.
If you’re not familiar with the story (where have you been?), it’s fairly simple, with a brash young Navy pilot named Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) getting sent to the Naval Fighter Weapons School to become the best of the best, this even after his recklessness in the cockpit has superiors up in arms. Once at ‘Topgun,’ he is in the company of the best pilots in the world and in competition to be on top, which is what he wants, though is soon distracted by one of the school’s instructors, a civilian named Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), the two eventually becoming lovers. Complications in training and tests of one’s abilities in the air keep Maverick on edge, and with some conflicts and tragedies on tap, being the best isn’t so easy to become.
While I sort of give a pass to the oily beach buddy moments and the transparent romance, I enjoy – and have with each rewatching – the core story of a rebel in need of discipline, a guy with tremendous skill who comes to learn teamwork beats the loner every time. The relationships with the pilots that Maverick are part of throughout are the best thing going, starting with his Radar Intercept Officer Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), who sits in the plane with him, the pair a dynamic ariel duo that push many of the others to their own limits. Goose is a family man and his destiny is crucial to Maverick’s journey, the movie handling this very well, even as it gets sometimes lost in the glossy testosterone-fueled urgency of everything else.
There’s also Maverick’s need to deal with two other important behavioral transitions, that of authority, portrayed by the school’s Chief Instructor (Tom Skerritt), and competition, seen as the only other pilot that gives Maverick competition, Iceman (Val Kilmer). It is how Maverick handles these men that has more emotional gravity than his obvious entanglement with Charlie. Maverick is forced to deal with his own actions, his impetuous need for isolation and winning that end up handing him the most demanding consequences. It’s not really all that deep of course, the movie more superficial than what it might have been, but it does strike all the right major chords, punctuated with great music and Scott’s driven direction.
Cruise had a run there where he portrayed characters always looking to be the best and it is Top Gun that remains the best of these movies, the film clearly putting him on a path where action dictated the rest of his career. Where would Mission: Impossible be without this movie paving the way? As a slice of nostalgic 80s pop culture, it’s hard to beat this jet-powered bit of whimsy, Cruise firmly establishing himself as a heartthrob but also a top leading man destined to be one of Hollywood’s biggest cash cows and there’s no doubt that returning to this in a sequel has tremendous appeal. But even if this new movie tanks (crashes and burns?), there is no blemishing the influence of the first, a timeless bombastic chuck of Cold War action that takes you to the danger zone and back.