Film Review: Top Gun - Maverick
Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures Australia.
I won’t deny you, fair reader, that I have become cynical with the entire ‘reach into the past, grab a sequel and make bank’ formula clearly present in today’s Hollywood. But, at least a movie like this proves that sometimes the result can be great and worth paying attention to.
I thought Top Gun: Maverick (TG2) was destined to be yet another sad nostalgia fiend, craven for internet clicks and hype, but I walked out pleasantly surprised. Considering the last Tom Cruise movie I watched, 2017’s The Mummy, I knew that Cruise wasn’t above desecrating beloved memories of ancient franchises, and there are few suited to that description; but 1986 is well over a quarter century ago. Thankfully, Cruise hasn’t aged a day since Top Gun (TG1) originally came out, but by God the planes sure have.
In fact, they’ve evolved so much that pilots are teetering on the edge of irrelevance, a plot-point that I thought the film would spend more time on. Instead, the Air Force realises that Maverick is just the thing needed to sell movie tickets nowadays, and thus a sequel is born.
This isn’t a bad decision. I mean, seeing Mav back in the cockpit is astounding given the leap in technical prowess since the original. When I watched TG1 for the first-time (mere hours before lining up to see the sequel, forgive me) the film had me feeling much like Goose after a rough ejection. TG1 was so grainy, even compared to other movies shot in the late 80’s, and this comes into stark contrast when the director is bold enough to use reel from TG1 in flashback scenes. There is certainly a museum quality to TG2 as the film progresses through more and more high-tech operations, highlighting the evolution of the Air Force and their significant changes in handling such operations.
Sitting back and watching Mav hit Mach 10 in some crazy new war machine or witnessing the new aerial manoeuvres possible nowadays is just plain fun. The whole thing reminded me of the Fast and Furious franchise, except maybe more so catered to the kind of macho men that like sitting around and drinking wine instead of pints.
Moving towards something of more substance, the plot is a nice compliment to the air show. While I walked out of TG1 feeling like it was a drama and not an action movie, TG2 leans heavier into the action with set pieces and explosions tastefully strewn throughout. A testament to the quality of this film and its handling of suspense however, is that although there are missiles and all manner of other Fast and Furious-esque set pieces, nothing is more thrilling than a low-fi, nostalgic dog fight using nothing more than bullets and mean words.
Top Gun: Maverick is screening in cinemas from Thursday 26th May. For tickets and more info, click here.