Year Released : 2022
Directed by: Joseph Kosinki
Starring: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, Val Kilmer
(PG-13, 131 min.)
Genre: Action and Adventure

Well worth the wait! Almost 40 years since the first ground-breaking film as well as the almost 3-year wait for it to hit the screens. Very lean and clean, filled with fabulous flying and just the right touches of nostalgia and humor.

And actually better than the first one. Tom Cruise, the actor and producer, has matured, and this film reflects that.

The star has not lost his ability to surprise us, either. The best surprise is his reinstatement of the Taiwan and Japanese patches on Maverick’s classic jacket. In 2019, the film had kowtowed to China’s insistence that they be removed. Now after China’s poor behavior regarding COVID, Cruise was not having it. Without tipping his hand, the jacket hits us like a handful of aces. The audiences in Taiwan gave it the standing ovation it deserved. And China was not pleased. Good.

And the cool $156 million Memorial Day opening, coupled with world wide $124 million, makes a tidy sum of $280 million, without either China or Russia giving it a go. American is back, baby.

And everyone seems to agree, even the usual persnickety critics. A rare show of unity for a country that badly needs it.

“After the airless thrills of recent superhero films, Top Gun: Maverick is like a lungful of oxygen, but it has soul to go with its spectacle.” Bennett Campbell Ferguson

But I think John Nolte says it best when he speculates on what makes Cruise “one of the few movie stars still standing” in an effete Hollywood:

You want to know why Tom Cruise is one of the few movie stars still standing? It’s not his looks or his agelessness or even his talent. There are all kinds of good-looking, talented, ageless actors and actresses out there… No, Tom Cruise is a star because he understands stardom in the same way John Wayne and Errol Flynn and Gene Kelly and Bette Davis and Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson understood stardom… It’s not about you! It’s about the audience! Dazzle them. Make them laugh. Make them cry. Inspire them. Broaden their horizons. Show them something new. Teach them. But never, ever talk down to them or act as their superior.

Respect the audience as a partner, and you will never break up. – John Nolte

***

Cruise and crew chose a few select areas to repeat, but not identically – more like a music theme that is revisited in the final movement that hits the high points but with deeper knowledge, as in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Cruise meets his new crew at the same old beach bar, but he is not the cocky young buck anymore; instead a mere captain after all these years, and an almost fired test pilot who has washed out of his Top Gun teaching position, only return there at the behest of Iceman (a poignant Val Kilmer), now the head Admiral of the Navy.

Having Maverick leave his Top Gun position is a great choice, since we all knew that Maverick was not going to settle for teaching pilots, and he does not here either.

Now he is not the young hot shot in the bar, but instead the “old man” they make fun of all evening. And of course, when he walks in the next day as their flight instructor, it echoes Maverick’s surprise in the original film when he sees the babe he hit on so amateurishly the night before (Kelly McGillis as Charlie Blackwood) is his instructor.

Of course, there is the iconic motorcycle shot and more, enhanced by Lady Ga Ga’s recording of “Hold My Hand,” interspersed with the most poignant scenes from the original film.

And another hat tip to the original is the classic volleyball game, but this time it is beach football, with Maverick holding his own against the youngsters. I found the original volleyball scene, but the new beach football scene appears to be in a lockbox. Here is the original as well as a shot of the Beach Volleyball scene and a shot of Maverick as the young hunk, with Hangman (Austin raised Glen Powell) in that role.

The romance in Top Gun:Maverick is mature and sweet, no crazy eating fruit from a human platter so to speak, which was a relief, since our teenage grandson was at the premiere with us. Jennifer Connelly is just right as divorcee Penny Benjamin. The only somewhat subtle reference to intimacy is lightened up by an unusual interruption that is both innocent, savvy, and heartfelt. The dynamics between the understated Jennifer Connelly and a dejected Maverick hit just the right notes, too, making the film as much about lost dreams and second chances instead of flyboy rivalry and cockiness as the original was. Yes, it is still there, but now in the background.

Perhaps the most poignant nod to the original is Maverick’s relationship to Iceman (Val Kilmer), once his sarcastic rival and now his biggest supporter, the one who continues to rescue the off-the-rails test pilot from himself time after time. At the time of the filming Kilmer was suffering the effects of his years long battle with throat cancer, although we do not know it at first as he continues to communicate with Maverick via texts that prod and encourage in equal doses. But when Maverick is summoned to the top admiral’s home, we see his distress. Only a few raspy words are all he gets out, but the two say it all without words in that short meeting.

As we said, just the right touch of nostalgia, without wallowing in it. Remember I said Tom Cruise still surprises us. Well, this even surprised my son, who has been a Top Gun fan just about his whole life. Sure, we might have known Cruise is a pilot, but did you know he can doe some pretty Top Gun maneuvers. And his meet up with Late Late Show’s James Corden is as funny as it is thrilling. The chemistry between the two is terrific, and Tom Cruise shows some great comic timing.

And finally, the film is focused on a mission, not one that just haphazardly appears near the end, as it did in the first film. That is what gives Top Gun: Maverick its lean and clean focus. In fact, the Mission Impossible star brings a similarly unfeasible task to the core his latest venture. Who will make it back to base and who will not?

You will have to see it yourself to find out.

–Kathy Borich
🥁🥁🥁🥁1/2

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

The song everyone remembers from the original is “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers,

but the centerpiece here is when Goose’s son, with a mustache just like his father, reprises Goose’s rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire.”

Well, of course, we had to make that the name of our cocktail, with just a slight hat tip to the somewhat infamous Jerry Lee Lewis who first made the electric recording of it standing up at the piano. The phrase, “Great balls of fire” has a religious history as reference to the power of the Lord, who often appears as fire, but the once religious Jerry Lee Lewis’ unconventional “sacred song” got him kicked out of college. He then decided “that if he couldn’t sing for the Lord, then he would do it for the Devil,” and then dedicated the song to Myra Gale Brown, a 13 year old distant cousin and Gerry Lee Lewis’ third wife. You will find out for juicy details on the of “Great Balls of Fire” here.

But wash all that taint out of your mind and raise a toast to our fly boys, even if the bond between Maverick and his best friend’s son is a bit tattered.