This week at the Morris theater, Top Gun: Maverick was held over for a second week, and was met with an unprecedented and successful response, both in Morris and across the board theatrically. The film has already grossed almost 600 million dollars, as of June 8th, 2022, and it looks to continue making money in the weeks to come. My thoughts below.
I had seen the original Top Gun before, but it was not a film that resonated with me on any level, and I thought it was more inadvertently humorous and homo-erotic than anything else. Despite this initial lack of interest, I rewatched it directly before I saw this latest film, and it is one of those rare occurrences where the sequel is not only better than the original, it actively makes the original better. There are great emotional beats in Maverick which are affective in and of themselves, but with the added context of the original film they are even more effective, and vice-versa. While the original film was directed by Tony Scott, this latest one was directed by Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy, and he has done a stellar job bringing these characters and this narrative back. The film, of course, stars Tom Cruise from the original, whose callsign is the titular maverick. A reckless yet aging fighter-jet pilot who is tasked with training a team to fly a seemingly impossible mission.
On this team are Miles Teller, who plays Maverick’s tragically deceased co-pilot’s son, callsign rooster. The personal drama in the film primarily comes from the relationship between these two and Teller’s character’s forgiving maverick for the accidental death of his father. Besides this, Cruise is finding himself caught up with an old flame, played by Jennifer Connelly, as he reconnects with her as he returns to train. This relationship serves an almost-too-obvious purpose of having Maverick have a sense of purpose beyond being a fighter pilot. But the performances from both Cruise and Connelly really legitimize the relationship. In fact, across the board the performances in this film were great: Tom Cruise gives perhaps his greatest performance in decades, and Miles Teller was a fantastic choice to play Rooster as he looks the part but also brought a lot of necessary emotion to his role.
I actually really enjoyed a lot of the character work in this film, and I think given how minimal the development was in the original, this is a stellar continuation of these characters’ stories. As well as the character work being engaging throughout, Maverick succeeds at referencing the first film without simply relying on it. There are direct throwbacks to the first film, but it is not presented in such a way that relies on the audience having seen it; The story would be comprehensible for someone who hadn’t seen the first.
While the plot is fun and engaging throughout the film, where it really shines is in the action sequences. The film is balanced really well, with there being many exciting moments in the fighter jets throughout the entire film. There are some truly excellent training montages of Maverick teaching the other pilots, all of which are presented masterfully. While not all of the stunts are real in the film, and they were obviously not allowed to actually fly the planes, the actors were truly being flown at absurd speeds in planes which are doing ridiculously impressive stunts. This is made even more impressive in the editing of the film, which somehow communicates the constantly fluctuating environment of air combat. Every scene has to balance multiple planes in the air at once, communicate where they are and who is flying which, and the layout of the environment around them. It was truly spectacular to see flying scenes done so magnificently. I genuinely haven’t seen any as impressive as this since the film Wings,which was released in 1927.
While each scene in a plane is excellent, the standout is absolutely the final act of the film, which was thirty minutes of some of the tightest action I have ever seen. The film has been building up this impossible mission the entire run-time, and to see it executed was enormously satisfying. What really sets the film’s third-act apart, though, is the unpredictable sequence of events, which goes from aerial combat, to on-the ground evasion of the bad-guys, back to an astounding aerial escape. It really is some of the finest action that I have seen in a theater in a long time. Tom Cruise and his team responsible for the Mission Impossible movies and their tremendous action brought their A-game to this franchise as well.
I had an absolute blast watching Top Gun: Maverick and I have already seen it twice, and I would honestly like to watch it again. It was as close to perfect as a sequel to Top Gun could have been, and I would highly recommend seeing it, on as big a screen as possible. The only regret I have in regard to the film is that I was unable to see the film in IMAX, which I think would have been a preferable experience. I highly recommend seeing this film in a theater, and I will give Top Gun: Maverick an 8/10.
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