Top Gun Maverick Review: Better than the Original Somehow

If you can possibly believe it, Top Gun Maverick out flies the first and Tom Cruise is spectacular!

You saw the title, right? If you did, you know where this is going and you know you should be going to see this film in the theaters as soon as possible.

The eighties icon Top Gun is back after many decades. Somehow Tom Cruise has managed to stay in such shape that not only is he in the movie, but he’s running around shirtless with twenty-year-olds. And it doesn’t look silly. I don’t have any idea how he’s doing that other than a bit of de-aging touch-up in post production. But honestly, he still has it at this point to such a degree that it’s staggering. And he does such a good job in a 2022 film that is a direct sequel to a film from the eighties that it seems like he stepped out of a time machine.

This is how you do a sequel. This is how you do a movie sequel that is for an original which is decades old. Rocky Balboa was sort of the high water mark for bringing back a long dormant franchise with an aging lead up until now. Top Gun Maverick blows it away. It just does. The film resonates emotionally, the relationships are great and we finally have a movie that knows how to spend time setting up realistic situations where characters wind up together. Though you may enter the film wondering how in the world it can possibly get to the places it needs to go in the end, it manages it smoothly. There’s nothing jarring here.

This shocked me this morning pic.twitter.com/lJQi5VubFt

— Valliant Renegade (@ValliantRenegad) May 26, 2022

There are also no legacy characters which are treated disrespectfully. Instead, the new generation is treated with care and the legacy characters are revered. Plus, there aren’t any legacy characters clearly out of their prime trying to do things that make you doubt the film. Everything here is just remarkable.

So negatives. There have to be some and I would say that the prepubescent girl who is wiser than her parent is a trope I’m tired of. I’d rather kids act like kids. I also think the movie leans on nostalgia just a smidge too much after Tom Cruise returns to Top Gun. The first bar scene is a little silly and over-the-top, even if Jennifer Connelly knocks it out of the park whenever she shows up. But I’m getting picky on those points. The obligatory football match on the beach is also odd and it seems hard to believe that a team would be built so quickly out of such a thing. Then again, you knew it had to happen, right? Outside of those issues though, and they’re minor, this is a nearly perfect movie. That doesn’t mean everyone is going to love it. There are certain people out there that are going to struggle to enjoy the film — people who like the Michael Bay huge explosions kind of thing are probably not going to fall head-over-heels for Top Gun Maverick. Kids probably will grow bored. But most people are thoroughly going to enjoy it.

The stunts are incredible, the camera work is miraculous and I just hope this movie makes tons and tons of money. It truly deserves it. This is a great, great movie.

Score: 9 (Incredible)

Oh, and Val Kilmer… it’s great to see you again. I hope there are more movies ahead.

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