TOP GUN MAVERICK
Added 2022-09-07 01:30:33 +0000 UTCWould love to hear your thoughts. I've been mulling this one over the last couple of days after having watched both.
Comments
One of my favorite scenes,Maverick has just been thrown out of the bar,He see's Rooster Playing Great Balls Of Fire, it takes him back,He wants to shore the moment with Rooster,He Can't. Penny Sees his pain .That got to me.
Gary Smith
2022-09-13 15:15:44 +0000 UTCPretty good and pretty untealistic.
Johan Thelin
2022-09-08 12:10:04 +0000 UTCYeah I mean, there’s inherent drama in watching a movie star reprise an iconic role that he played decades ago, the one that made him famous in the first place. The drama is in whether the character still has what it takes to succeed at what he does, so many years later. And we wonder whether the actor still has it, the quality that made us love him as the character in the first place. There’s an appeal in finding out that he does. It’s funny, this might be the first Tom Cruise movie to even remotely acknowledge how old he is. He’s not one of the young guys anymore. He’s the instructor, the Tom Skerritt role from the original. Granted, he’s still Maverick, and he’s still a wild, fearless fighter pilot who’s got one over everyone else in terms of skill. Cruise isn’t about to surrender that aspect about him (nor would we want him to). But it’s nice to know that the star of his generation who’s the most reluctant to acknowledge he’s aging is admitting, even in a slight, indirect way, that he’s now a dude well into middle-age (he’s 60 years old!). You certainly won’t get that kind of admission in a Mission: Impossible movie.
Bennett Oliver
2022-09-08 02:55:22 +0000 UTCDefinitely agree with that last sentence. Also, I totally get your perspective, it kinda reminds me of why I enjoy something like Rocky Balboa (aka Rocky 6). Same basic idea, where an aging star still feels like he has something to prove, rekindling a relationship from his past, and ultimately relying heavily on the star's charisma to carry the movie. Its all manipulation/nostalgia but it still works for me.
Stephen
2022-09-08 02:01:21 +0000 UTCInteresting that you feel bitterness. Is it because, after all is said and done, this is a film that is not daring or original? That as exhilaratingly well-made those combat scenes are, as much as they trump a lot of mainstream films today (mostly by doing everything in camera), this is a film that is more preoccupied with being a blast from the past than something that points towards the future for film? Because as much as I enjoyed it, that’s a frustration for me. I’d be hard-pressed to think of the last mainstream film that was truly…innovative, that made a seismic impact, that felt like nothing we hadn’t seen before. The last one might be The Matrix (okay, maybe some credit to LOTR as well). That was the last one to really break new ground, where you felt like a new myth was being born. Just about every film since then, even those as dazzlingly well-made as Mad Max: Fury Road, has been a either a sequel, a reboot, a retread, or something indebted to the recent past (yes, that goes for Inception, which is Nolan’s answer to The Matrix). I like TG:M just fine, for all the reasons I’ve listed. I had a very good experience watching it, and I wish more films were made with its kind of spirit. But I do wish that that spirit looked more towards blazing a trail ahead rather than look back to the past, no matter how skillfully and artfully it does so. TG:M is going to be considered a milestone release for 2022, but even with its refreshingly old-school approach, I don’t think it will do anything to lift us out of the culturally stagnant period we’re in. We need less throwbacks and more risk-takers.
Bennett Oliver
2022-09-08 00:06:16 +0000 UTCI agree 100%. I shot my review for it not long ago, and a lot of those feelings that you speak about, exist in my mind for sure. I felt a bitterness to it. But it really works.
Deepfocuslens
2022-09-07 23:21:02 +0000 UTCI really enjoyed it. Yeah, there’s some shameless callbacks to the first film meant to evoke nostalgia, but it’s suffused with some real gravitas, a melancholy towards days long past. It’s both sad and endearing seeing Maverick still pissing off the top brass after 30 years with his daredevil antics all the while holding on to a mid-level rank of Captain. He’s spent a lifetime as a Naval Aviator with little to show for it. The remnants of his old life is the on-off relationship he has with Penny (a romance that works a hell of a lot better than the one in the original, not least of which because Cruise has got much better chemistry with Jennifer Connelly and it doesn’t take up too much room in the film) and the guardianship of Iceman (that scene with Val Kilmer got to me. It made me realize how much I miss him in movies. They played that scene with just the right amount of haunting poignance.) The flight scenes were incredible as well, enough to make me wish I had seen the movie in a theater. What a world of difference it makes when you do shit for real vs. CGI. In that way, those scenes serve a dual purpose that are interlinked. The movie says that Maverick and his kind are dying out, relics of a bygone era whose way of doing things are being replaced by automated computers. Maverick—and by extension Tom Cruise—realizes this, but he’s going to keep doing what he’s doing until the very end. TG:M means to show us how exhilarating that can still be, and I say it succeeds. Yeah, the movie is pure escapist corn, manufactured solely for audience satisfaction, but Tom Cruise makes those kinds of films better than anyone else in Hollywood right now. He has just the right touch. He knows that analog will almost always beat digital, and nostalgia only works when it’s given some weight.
Bennett Oliver
2022-09-07 20:13:25 +0000 UTCIf there's such a thing as fan service done right, this was it for me.
Steven Aguilera
2022-09-07 11:49:09 +0000 UTCI loved it, and after rewatching the first film recently, I loved that one too. The cheesiness of the original only adds to the charm for me, and while the new film has plenty of flaws and cringeworthy frat-bro elements, the plot and performances are good enough to showcase the real talent, which is the jets themselves. There is genuine craft, risk, and innovation involved in capturing these planes up close at low altitudes. Both films are exceptional in this respect. And considering the unprecedented access to the jets and cooperation from the Navy, only possible in the second film because of the success and influence of the first, it is a unique accomplishment. I’ve never considered Tom Cruise a great actor, but over the years, I’ve come to regard him as a good film maker. He takes full ownership of the films he produces and has pushed boundaries to capture some amazing stunt sequences over the years.
James ODonoghue
2022-09-07 05:26:54 +0000 UTCThe original Top Gun is better and has been unfairly dismissed by some. I enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick quite a bit. It was much better than I expected for a sequel coming 36 years after the original. It was certainly better than most blockbusters that have been released in recent years. But it felt a bit like watching a Marvel movie. Everything is in place, every beat. It’s complete competence renders it soulless in a way. (Though, again, I did enjoy it, especially the sequence when Maverick teaches all the young pilots a lesson with the push-ups, and the Kilmer scene.) The original Top Gun undoubtedly has some 1980s cheeseball elements. The ending dogfight goes through a sort of eye-rolling sequence of everything Maverick has gone through over the course of the movie: going through a jet wash, don’t leave my wingman, hit the breaks, they’ll fly right by. But there’s an artistry in some of the moments that TG: Maverick doesn’t match. The slow push-in on Maverick with Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay playing as he explains what happened to his parents. “He screwed up. … No way. My old man was a great fighter pilot.” Great Balls of Fire continuing to play as Maverick and Charlie ride the motorcycle down the pier at night. Meg Ryan just a burst of joy for two scenes, making what happens to Goose all the more affecting. The effectiveness of the death scene. The bloody face. The medic saying, “You have to let him go, sir.” The absolutely limp body being pulled up. This is a lot of words. Your honor, I rest my defense of Top Gun (1986).
Jim Barnes
2022-09-07 04:16:51 +0000 UTCI saw it in IMAX with a packed enthusiastic crowd and really did not like it. Everything about it felt so calculated with nothing much to hang onto. I say this understanding that we are living in a time where sequels are exclusively branding themselves around nostalgia for the original movies but even then this felt like too much. Additionally, the action sequences are being way overrated in my opinion and I say this while acknowledging that they're one of the best parts of the movie. A few days later I rewatched the original movie and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It worked for me as simply a hangout movie, vaguely in a Hawksian sense. It at least had something going on beneath the surface and no I'm not referring to Tarantino's infamous reading of the movie, but one could definitely read it that way as well lol.
Stephen
2022-09-07 02:31:07 +0000 UTCI think it’s doing well because it’s well made, but also safe and familiar
Jackson Littlewood
2022-09-07 02:08:02 +0000 UTCIt's Fine. I don't understand why it's doing so well. Totally pedestrian film.
Arthur Augustyn
2022-09-07 01:55:41 +0000 UTCNot interested because I hated the first film. Like Ferris Bueller, Maverick was a complete bore with no genuine motivation and Kelly McGillis was absolutely wasted after her terrific role in Witness with Harrison Ford. Absolutely no chemistry between the two. It was nothng but a lame two hour 80s music video.
Wolfman Brandon
2022-09-07 01:38:50 +0000 UTCI think I get what you're saying with the third act but honestly, I think if they went with the "bold" move I think you're hinting, it would feel like it's aping the original too much. I almost think not going with that route was more surprising than actually doing it.
Tyler Shobe
2022-09-07 01:37:18 +0000 UTCLove it especially after watching the first movie which bored me to tears. This new one is consistently thrilling, has solid and effective emotional beats and is just a technical feat that's wonderous to behold. It does get drug down by its romantic subplot but after having seen it four times, even that part has grown on me a bit. It's just about everything I want from a widely accessible blockbuster.
Tyler Shobe
2022-09-07 01:34:40 +0000 UTCI like it but I think it’s overrated. The action sequences are obviously incredible and the character work is much better than the original Top Gun. Like the original though, I struggled with the US military propaganda stuff and how that interferes with the narrative tension. The fact that they never say who the opposing country is really reduces the stakes for me. I care about the characters in the planes but not at all about what they’re doing on their mission. Also the third act just has a lot of cop outs in which they could’ve done something really bold, but they opted to play it safe. I get the appeal, and I do like it, but yeah, just overrated I think.
Jackson Littlewood
2022-09-07 01:34:12 +0000 UTC
