The Right Top-Gun Wars Stuff

spoilers ahead...

I never watched original Top Gun in theaters (not even this one), and have only caught enough pieces of it on TV over the years to piece together the general story. Seemed ok enough, especially back in the day.

The sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, has had boffo B.O. and good reviews especially from some friends. Oddly, neither of my teen-aged kids had any interest in it, so on a slow night at home I went solo to the movies. Some observations:

RipOffs - nothing wrong with copying from the masters: The first scene takes a page from the end of The Right Stuff, and adds a nice joke to it; and the main flight operation is copied from Star Wars trench-run and thermal exhaust port torpedo shot. Is this a lack of imagination from the writers? Whatever, it's all in good fun. Best part is that there's an extended after-torpedo plot complication that adds another level of ridiculous fun to the affair.

Cruise - Most sequels are done right after the success of the original, and, usually, have little if any change characters of the leading parts. Here, Tom Cruise and Maverick have aged many decades and that's an integral part of the plot: Mav is older, only slightly wiser, has gone through a lot of (never completely explained) experiences, close calls, and almost-discharges. Great thing about this is that Cruise, looking older (he's my age after all!), embodies that part of the character, in contrast to the brash kid from the original. As Indy says, "It's not the years, it's the [visible] mileage".

You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - Interestingly, in the spot where there would be a re-run of the originals iconic musical pick-up-line, the movie puts in a scene where Goose's son plays 'Great Balls of Fire', recreating his father's other musical scene. The reaction of Maverick to hearing this blast from his tragic past is quite moving and Cruise milks it for all it's worth. A nicely different mood versus just a recreated bar sing-a-long.

IceMan - Good to see Val Kilmer back on screen and he does fine in his scene with Cruise. Again, rather than the standard scene setting of a hospital bed, this takes place with a terminal but still (barely) standing Iceman. (The recreated Kilmer voice is a non-issue; it's just a couple whispered sentences)

G-forces - The pre-release hype about the actors having to actually fly in F-18s (in the rear-seat) to get realistic reactions for the film pays off great. The lurching bodies and straining to not pass-out faces certainly raise the bar for future fighter-pilot movies. Orders-of-magnitude better than Star Trek stumbling around the bridge with shaky-camera effect! (And also explains why the writers had to add in the rather dumb trench run, dive-bomb, and steep-climb mission requirements)