Top Gun: Maverick brings Tom Cruise’s movie stardom full circle
The student becomes the teacher in Joe Kosinski's exhilarating legacyquel, as Cruise passes the torch to a new generation
Film Reviews Tom Cruise
By accident or design, a significant part of Tom Cruise’s early career was dominated by roles in which he was fighting to achieve self-actualization or independence from the reputation of his father or a father figure. Though these characters frequently went unseen, except as a narrative and emotional catalyst, his mentors, from Days Of Thunder to Cocktail to The Firm, always cast a long shadow, one that was difficult to escape, much less live up to. Top Gun: Maverick gives Cruise the biggest full-circle moment of his career, and not just because it tells the ultimate story of a student becoming the teacher: as the film’s lead and its producer, he shepherds a new generation of actors through their early steps towards stardom while burnishing his own legacy in the process.
It’s a remarkable effort in an extraordinary film that evokes the iconography of its 1986 predecessor. But Top Gun: Maverick exceeds the original technically, while circumventing naked jingoism in an era when depictions of the military can (or maybe should) no longer be unambiguously celebratory. Joe Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) matches his well-established architectural precision with suitably nostalgic but never pandering emotionality, while Cruise commands the screen in a performance that leverages his multimillion-dollar star wattage to brighten the entire film.
Cruise reprises his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, the hot dog Top Gun graduate who burned out as a teacher two months after the end of the first film and spent the next three and a half decades repeatedly sabotaging his career with one act of rule-breaking aerial rebellion after another. When his gig as a test pilot ends with record speed and a crashed plane, Maverick receives orders to return to Top Gun and train a group of overconfident aviators for a mission to destroy a heavily defended weapons factory.
Maverick agrees, in lieu of a dishonorable discharge, but soon discovers that Rooster (Miles Teller), the disgruntled son of his former co-pilot Goose, is among the trainees. Unsure how best to prepare the reticent young pilot for a mission that requires absolute self-assurance, Maverick attempts to mend fences with Rooster while watching him compete with classmates like Hangman (Glen Powell), who shows none of Rooster’s hesitation—nor his compassion, a different kind of weakness. As the deadline for the mission nears, Maverick trains Rooster, Hangman, and the other pilots with increasing urgency, hoping they will rise to his unconventional challenges, while taking a hard look at his own accomplishments as reflected through his students’ failures and successes.
If the original Top Gun enjoyed then-unprecedented access to Naval aviators and their equipment, the reported 500 percent spike in recruitment numbers following its 1986 opening unquestionably emboldened both the military and the filmmakers for Maverick. Instead of putting the actors in a studio cockpit and matching the shots with real aerial footage, Kosinski and returning producer Jerry Bruckheimer actually sent their cast up in the sky and captured their reactions with IMAX-quality cameras. After Cruise’s increasing acts of derring-do in the Mission: Impossible franchise, that choice comes as no surprise—for his sequences, at least. But the consistency and versatility of the coverage that Kosinski gets creates an astonishing verisimilitude that almost no action film has recently matched.
As conceived by Kosinski and a handful of military consultants and written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Cruise’s M:I collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, the mission for which the trainees prepare exudes heavy “a two-meter port on the Death Star” vibes. But in an era of increasingly gamified storytelling (Uncharted, for example, felt more like an advertisement for its source material than an adaptation), Kosinski mostly manages to evade the sensation that audiences are playing the movie instead of watching it. That engaged, humanistic edge is amplified by emotional threads that McQuarrie and his counterparts build into sequences, allowing the characters to lead instead of the spectacle. Rest assured, though, that you’ll be gobsmacked by the aerial footage, which probably exceeds what was captured by Tony Scott and cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball in the original film. Still, it’s the people in those planes that keeps viewers invested.
Cruise, of course, leaps back into Maverick with the same fearlessness and resolute commitment he has brought to seemingly every other challenge in his recent career. But the more that he collaborates with McQuarrie—and now Kosinski, who directed him in Oblivion—the more comfortable he seems acknowledging his age, even if he’s still determined to defy it with his actions. Cruise has become increasingly generous towards his co-stars in recent years; as mesmerizing as Emily Blunt was in Edge Of Tomorrow and Rebecca Ferguson has continued to be in the M:I films, a big part of their respective successes involved Cruise clearing a path for them despite his marquee status. Across this film’s unilaterally attractive and charismatic ensemble, he does the same again, making choices both in the story and as a scene partner that frequently showcases or defers to them.
Notwithstanding Jon Hamm as the ranking hard-ass who begrudgingly comes to respect Maverick’s iconoclastic pedigree, it’s Jennifer Connelly who makes the biggest meal out of her supporting role. As an admiral’s daughter and local bar owner, Connelly semi-reluctantly rekindles a relationship with the guy she once “went ballistic” with, per dialogue from the first film. She’s a witness to his emerging leadership and growth, but she’s also a stable, self-sufficient business owner and single mom in a military community where a constant circuit of new recruits creates an atmosphere of impermanence. Her scenes with Cruise feel at once like two masters enjoying both the fun of sparring with dialogue, and a second chance (or maybe a third) at romance between folks who thought they had aged out of meet-cute moments.
Meanwhile, you might not think of the young star of Whiplash as the spitting image of Anthony Edwards, but from the moment a mustachioed, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Teller sits down at the piano to play “Great Balls Of Fire” for a bar full of service men and women, it immediately becomes clear how solid a choice he was for the role. The character’s resentment toward Maverick is more complicated than simply blaming him for Goose’s death, which makes their dynamic one you desperately want to see resolved. But even as an individual navigating the balance between individual achievement and the Navy’s esprit de corps, Teller injects his role with layers of introspection and complexity that makes his professional, personal, and generational coming of age feel earned.
Powell shines among the rest of the new recruits as Rooster’s nemesis, a next-generation version of Val Kilmer’s Iceman, even as Kilmer shows up for a brief and tender cameo highlighting both the wisdom that comes with getting older, and the heartbreaking vulnerability. But while Kosinski steadily builds to what feels like an hourlong, sustained climax that synthesizes expert piloting, virtuoso camerawork, and methodical storytelling, Cruise wields his singular Hollywood stature as effortlessly as his character does the joystick of an F/A-18 Super Hornet, reminding audiences why they’ve loved him for more than four decades.
In fact, until he reminds you of it, it’s easy to forget that Pete Mitchell actually graduated second in his Top Gun class back in 1986. Top Gun: Maverick finally and fully immortalizes him as the best among equals, but not just because there’s seemingly nothing he can’t do in an airplane. Rather, the real lesson he imparts is that the best talent to cultivate—in the military or anywhere else—is becoming a good wingman, and even more than his character, Tom Cruise does that better than just about anyone.
371 Comments
I can’t fucking wait. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this excited to see a movie.
I refuse to believe this is actually good.
DANGER ZONE!
Looks like this movie has critics jumping off the deck and shoving into overdrive.
Tonight they’ll relax for a nice round of beach volleyball in jeans.PLAYING WITH THE BOYS!
NEVER SAY DIE!Wait. Shit.
“Take my breath away”- said some critics.
I guess Todd, for one, has not lost that loving feeling.
I hate it when he does that!
Ray-dee-oh…’bout to blow!
THANK YOU for the Archer reference
Aces high! Oh wait…
No, wait… THIS IS IT!
Looking forward to seeing this in IMAX, but I’m fairly certain I’ll get into an accident on the drive home. Military lingo always gets me fired up, so I’m sure I’ll be t-boning some random Toyota Corolla as my ego writes checks my body can’t cash.
Shelly Miscavige is in the Danger Zone.
I’m glad you acknowledged what some of us have spotted for a while now. Tom Cruise has given younger actors, and younger women particularly, star-making roles. Emily Blunt and Rebecca Ferguson are the two biggest examples, but Paula Patton was allowed to shine (and did nothing with the boost, but that’s another topic)
Thandiwe Newton was a thing before MI2 – which gets way too much hate as the worst of the MI franchise even though the worst of that franchise is better than a lot of stuff – but that made her more.
I would not want to have dinner with the man, but he delivers the product I need him to deliver – a couple hours of fun for my money. If Leah Remini doesn’t like it, tell her to wait 10 minutes and try to sell her pathetic story for another interview to make her feel better.
The part problem is that Paula Patton is just…”meh” on top all the other reasons she never became a thing. But I would argue that Emily Blunt didn’t really need Tom Cruise. Between The Devil Wears Prada and Young Victoria she was sort of already thing and you can see that by just looking at her filmography.
Fair point, but I’d argue we didn’t start thinking about her as Sue Storm or a possible Black Widow character until then.
She didn’t interact much with Cruise, but Ghost Protocol is also when I was like, “OK, who is this Lea Seydoux and what is this funny feeling in my pants?”
Not really. Iron Man 2 came out in 2010 and that’s when I heard about her being cast as Black Widow and then having to back out and Edge of Tomorrow came out in 2014/2015? So the thought was already there. Look, I like Tom Cruise (despite his Scientology weirdness) and I do think he is a gracious person but I just think that giving Tom Cruise credit for any aspect of Emily Blunt’s career is silly (and I mean her specifically, I agree with that other takes). And I don’t mean like it’s sexist or anything, just from looking at her movies on Wikipedia she was successful before and would have been successful without him.
I just looked at her Wikipedia list too and she was certainly working between Devil Wears Prada (which is kind of her movie the same way Lord of the Rings is John Rhys-Davies’ movie) and Edge of Tomorrow, but the movies she got post Edge of Tomorrow are vastly different.
But you’re right, she was up for Black Widow. Maybe she’s gets in that same kind of shape like ScarJo did and never needs Edge of Tomorrow.
Fair, I retract most of what I said. I do believe Blunt’s career was IMPROVED by working with Cruise, but it was not created by that.
I’ll say this in support of Todd’s point: it’s a bit much to give him credit for Blunt’s (or Ferguson’s) career, but it is worth noting that even the best actresses often find themselves sidelined as just the love interest in big action movies, and that in the past few years Cruise has seemed intent not to sideline his female costars that way. There may be a lot to criticize about him, be it the weird cult he belongs to, or the suicidal-seeming stunts he favors, but he’s been a generous acting partner at a point in his career where he has extraordinary creative control of his projects.
People think of her as a good Sue Storm because she’s married to John Krasinski, and starred in A Quiet Place with him.
Emily Blunt didn’t really need Tom Cruise That’s for sure, but… they were really great together in that movie. This review notes that Cruise has been generous to his co-stars in recent movies, and I can’t argue with that. I have a limited interest in Cruise’s movies, but Edge of Tomorrow and nearly all of the Mission Impossible movies are well worth seeing a couple times.
I am not saying they weren’t great. But if she wasn’t in that film I do not think her career would be any different in my opinion.
Not to mention A Quiet Place.But she was a force in Edge of Tomorrow, and a more interesting character than Cruise’s.
Yeah, I’d argue that movie works because of her and I remember the reviews saying the same. Actually I remember the reviews saying she elevated that film. She was a critical darling and he was movie star in that old 90s way; really they helped each other with that film.
Emily Blunt didn’t really need Tom Cruise THIS!Cruise shouldn’t get any special credit for these actors’ successes. I’m sure Emily Blunt’s career was helped somewhat by that movie (which wasn’t a hit, you may remember), but it could have been any other movie. Same goes for any other example you can give.
It’s a crazy level of spin to praise Cruise for not abusing his producer status to hog the camera and diminish is co-stars as much as he could, when that just is what a normal lead actor should do.When you contexualize Cruise’s well-documented insecurities and insistance that his characters are all 32-ish years old, his “promotion of women” can probably be better explained by a caveman’s desire not to “compete” on screen with male co-leads.
She was already a thing, but Edge of Tomorrow made her a completely different and far more lucrative thing.
Blunt didn’t need a high-octane action movie, but she crushed it. Cruise ultimately saves the world, but for 3/4 of the movie, she’s the tougher and more savvy of the two (as written, and performed).
Thanks for your input, but we’re really not interested in your personality test.
But it’s free!
“If Leah Remini doesn’t like it, tell her to wait 10 minutes and try to
sell her pathetic story for another interview to make her feel better.”Yeah Scientology is a harmful cult that damages people on a daily basis and Tom Cruise is a bad person, generally.
Put me down in your Suppressive Person database, that’s ‘Murry Chang’, make sure you spell it right.
I’m not really in charge of persecutions. Can I interest you in some apathetic sneering?
Sign me up for SeaOrg I wanna get disappeared like Shelly Miscavige!
“that’s ‘Murry Chang’, make sure you spell it right.”There’s another Murry Changg, with two ‘g’s. No sense of humor.
I live within walking distance of several of the filming locations of Mission Impossible 2, the racecourse is just down the road and my university used to book function rooms there for us to have our exams at. The island at the end is an old fortress called Bare Island and because of the people doing backstage’s family were caretakers there, we got to have a great Law Revue party there in 1994 (not so good that someone fell through a roof of a heritage site).So it pains me to say that in spite of all this (and having a director responsible for both Hard Boiled and The Killer), I find MI2 the weakest of the series by a very great margin.
Xenu strike me down for saying it, but I find the first one almost unwatchable now. And making Jim Phelps the bad guy was idiotic.
Here’s my case for the 2nd one:
* The action scenes are deliciously cheesy and over the top. I learned in this movie that you can wheelie the back wheel of a motorcycle. (Well, you can. I can’t)
* This is one movie where the leading lady has agency, her own story and makes a key decision to advance the plot (injecting herself with the virus) completely independent of the hero or villain.
* The scene where Ethan tricks the bad guy into killing his own henchman is a top 5 scene in the entire franchise.
* The ending fight scene is great fun
* Anthony Hopkins should have been the M of this franchise going forward. Of course, the bit about a new secretary every time is hilarious too.
Really? I love the first one because other than the helicopter chase it’s a spy movie, not a series of action setpieces. It has some stellar scenes, but on a more personal level.
Really? I love the first one because other than the helicopter chase it’s a spy movie, not a series of action setpieces. It has some stellar scenes, but on a more personal level.I agree. The first one is great for all the things it doesn’t shoehorn in, like stage a series of over the top stunts. And I appreciate that Ethan relies on his wits and his guile and never has to pick up a gun.
Mission: Impossible 2’s biggest contribution to cinema is Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Eyes Wide Shut ran long, as should have been expected from Kubrick; that delayed the start of filming on MI2, which in turn meant Dougray Scott wasn’t finished in time to play Logan in X-Men. The rest is history.And! While the first film has aged – neither badly nor well, just a lot – at least it’s interested in the tradecraft, which clearly bored Woo massively. Subsequent And! I say this every time MI2 is mentioned, but how can Tom Cruise wear a convincing Dougray Scott mask and Scott wear an equally convincing Cruise mask? One of them must have a bigger head than the other.But! If it brings you happiness, then you do you, friend, and I’ll stick to my own knitting.
I’ll amend your first line, then:
Mission: Impossible’s biggest contribution to cinema is Hugh Jackman. Full stop.
I need to borrow the Darkhold for a few minutes and visit the universe where Dougray Scott is Wolverine and Hugh Jackman is a beloved Broadway icon who occasionally makes rom-coms (or who is James Bond from 2005-2020)
But Jon Voigt should always be the bad guy.
I’m waiting for National Treasure 3 just for his heel turn. It. Must. Happen.
I would never give Tom Cruise credit for making anyone’s career, especially Emily Blunt, but he does seem to spotlight young talent as well as having seemingly age appropriate love interests
her “pathetic story”? Are you a scientologist or something? She was brainwashed by a cult, got out, and now she’s warning people. She deserves sympathy, not insults.
See, you’d be a lot more convincing with your “I am firmly neutral on Tom Cruise and only enjoy his movies” stance if you didn’t mean-spiritedly shit on Leah Remini for some reason.
Not some reason. The reason is: I don’t like her.
JFC even when you’re complimenting a woman you can’t help but shit on another. The fuck is wrong with you?
you are in a cult
It’s ok to like a Tom Cruise movie, or even Tom Cruise himself, without having a mad on for someone who is doing legitimate work in exposing a criminal cult, you know. Tommy can survive it.
So is it homoerotic football this time around?
More like a pansexual game of musical chairs.
I hope they clean the chairs throughly.
Naked Foosball.
I hope they clean the . . . fooses throughly.
Worse. Pickleball.
Dills vs. Gherkins.
There’s a female fighter pilot, so just erotic?
In an MMMMF gangbang kind of way
Homoerotic, what’s that Harry Potter game with the brooms?
I think they just call it “football.”
no but there is grainy video of each of them face-fucking their cousins, so…six of one…
I’d love to watch it for the cinematography but the rest sounds dreadful so…nah…
Am I the only person who’s legitimately 30-70% less likely to watch this for the simple reason that Miles Teller is in it in a major role? It’s fine if it’s just me.
closer to 30% than 70% (and it is in fact 0% because my buddy already got tickets) but he was definitely the reason i turned off ‘the offer’.
The Offer… still watching but Dan Fogler
Everyone’s always talking about how punchable his face is… Am I the only one here who finds him hot
You must have a thing for dudes with punchable faces
It’s a hard road when you’ve got a punchable face fetish. You can only hope to meet someone like Teller, who acts as if his fetish truly is getting punched in the face.
Well, one man’s punchable is another man’s please sit on.
Common among the sadist community.
Hotly punchable!
I don’t find him hot but I think he looks like a young Dean Martin.
Nah, you’re not alone. He had that long procession of interviews where he seemed to deliberately come across as an entitled asshole, an image that some of his former co-stars were all too willing to confirm. Maybe he’s matured since then, but if it wasn’t for Whiplash I don’t think I’d have any reservations about writing him off completely.
I agree. There’s a smugness to him that is hard to shake. That said, he was also great in The Spectacular Now, as a teenage alcoholic.
I have a theory that Whiplash would be an impossible movie to watch because of how brutal it is to the main character. But then they cast Miles Teller and you think “J K Simmons is going easy on this kid”.
I’m going to see it. Though, I really wanted them to say he sucks.
He’s the second worst fella in that flick after Jon Hamm.
are you nuts??? Jon Hamm is always the best thing in anything he’s in.
So… Jon Hamm isn’t cool anymore? What did he do?
Jon Hamm was involved in a violent hazing incident early in his college career. Serious injuries and a lot of mental trauma to the kid involved. Maybe a few degrees less awful than Mark Walberg’s early transgressions, but still pretty awful.
Jeezus, how much do you like Tom Cruise?
I have no issues with Miles Teller. But, based on the coming attraction, it looks like he somehow inherited his dad’s mustache. Did Goose leave it to him in his will?
It was in one of those old cigar boxes you see in movies where people keep their most cherished items. In this case dogtags, cute pic of mom and dad, a couple of medals and the mustache. Only he knows when it’s time to take it out and put it on his face.He probably also used it as a disguise so people wouldn’t try to punch him all the time.
Maverick threw it overboard with the dog tags.
This triggers a memory of Hot Shots! with Charlie Sheen, which is a parody of Top Gun. In that movie the lead has a line about inheriting his father’s eyes, and then he takes out a box that has the eyes in it.
Yeah, that felt like gilding the lily. We get it! He’s Goose’s kid!
Not the only one.
It’s not just you. Hollywood keeps trying to make Miles Teller into a charismatic leading man, and I just don’t get it.
At least Hollywood finally gave up on Jim Sturgess. (after giving him WAY more chances than he deserved!)
Oh yah that guy! I did really like Across The Universe tho.
But yah…. he wasn’t a thing.
Yeah, he sucks!
The “punchable face” thing is just the latest pop culture cool kids meme we’ve all latched onto. He’s a perfectly adequate actor, and I don’t really care if he’s an entitled asshole IRL; I don’t have to deal with him IRL.
The world bores you when you’re cool. So you punch faces.
Is he really adequate? I’ve seen him do some decent acting, but there’s something about his performances where he’s trying to be naturalistic, but it always feels like he’s actively trying to call my attention to the fact he’s acting. Shia Labeuf used to do something similar, albeit with a less pugilistically-inclined face.
*shrug* He doesn’t seem any better or worse than the average actor. He was fine in Whiplash (of course Simmons was the real draw there).
He’s “adequate” in that he manages to get his lines out and you can more or less understand the words.Teller never gets close to actual acting, though.
My interest level went markedly down when I got to his name.
I was like, ok, he’d make a decent villain…oh, wtf?!?!
You are def not alone. If this movie had come out when it was originally supposed to it probably would have been really hurt by his casting. He seems to have gone through the same thing John Mayer went through where he did a series of interviews in which he came off like an unapologetic asshole and it definitely hurt his career. Those interviews and the pandemic ensured he didn’t work for a long time. I think he got a glimpse at what life would be like if he wasn’t a movie star and he did not like what we he saw and it forced him to grow up. He also got married so that and that time off seems to have matured gim. He was on Jimmy Kimmel a couple weeks ago and seemed very gracious and humble.
Time will tell though!
Fuckin hate that guy, and I have no reason why. I’ll watch this movie, but I can wait for home release, and if he weren’t in it, it’d probably be opening weekend for me.
Yah I have no specific reason like the mentioned above him-being-an-asshole-in-interviews thing. I just don’t like his face. I was watching a trailer for “The Offer” and as soon as he came onscreen I turned it off. I’m so sorry Miles Teller, I just don’t know why I dislike you.
I’ll never see Fant4stic.
I’ll never see Fant4stic.If you did see it, you’d have yet another reason to dislike Teller’s acting.
Maybe Cruise kills him, too. Finishes off the family line once and for all.
I haven’t seen this guy in anything and don’t have opinions about him. But there are a few movies I feel I have to see in a theater because nothing that is or (barring Powerball-win levels of home improvement) ever could be in my house would do them justice. In fact, if the local IMAX theater where we saw Ford Vs. Ferrari gets this movie, that’s where I’m going.
I’m going to see it but I don’t care for Teller’s face! Seriously he just has one of those D bag faces!
He’s “America’s Smart Ass.” Your loss.
No.
I like him in The Offer. So its no big deal.
I too find him hard to watch
Not just you.
I’m pretty much guaranteed to see this now, but it’s not just you. Miles Teller is the thing the waiter tells you is a rare and wonderful delicacy that you quietly shunt to the edge of your plate, and hope you can ignore while enjoying the rest of your meal.
Who?
Jennifer Connely made it a must-see on my list.
I’m not someone standing out on the road with signs telling people to check out his films. But I think it hurts more that he’s playing Great Balls of Fire. I get this is a sequel, and this is designed to tug at those fans of the original, but c’mon, pick another song.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I didn’t know if it was common or not but I just can’t stand him. I decided to see this last minute since my sister already got me a ticket and I hear it’s pretty good.
I thought Teller was very good in this. He really conveyed the feelings and motivations of the character well even without speaking very much. I was impressed.
Given how forgettable Oblivion was (as well as the ever-present risk of sequels being little more than jukebox musicals – I’m looking at you, Star Wars), I was a little wary of this, but damn if you haven’t convinced me.
Oblivion was a rock-solid Berserker story.
A real Berserker would have slagged the planet and moved on.
Maybe, or maybe it would have used Goodlife to strip the planet’s resources first.
Frankly, those fuckers are a cult. Consorting with biologicals is some sick and twisted shit.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. I really liked that movie.
I did too. I thought the sound track was really good too. Good enough to buy it. Good for background music at work or at home. Also driving home. Same with his Tron: Legacy soundtrack.
Agreed. Pro Oblivion soundtrack.
Agreed. Pro Oblivion.
Yep. Me too. Fresh and original story that was not immediately obvious.
Right there with you. I found it absolutely delightful.
I always like it when I watch it, but then like it less when I actually think about all the plot holes/logical inconsistencies afterwards.
I just want his sky house and helicopter thing.
I quite enjoyed Oblivion. I thought Andrea Riseborough stole the show and that she really was the tragic centre of the movie. In a way, the movie was more a love triangle of sorts with women who loved a man who loved another woman and the aliens kind of background details in a sense.
She’s been popping up in some great supporting roles since then and she’s definitely one of my favorite actresses right now. Super underrated.
It didn’t leave a real imprint of any kind, but as entertainment it is absolutely rock solid.
I can’t keep track. Do we actually believe AVClub reviews anymore? Is this movie actually good? Does any staff here actually get what the community enjoyed anymore?Or is this another “Father Stu is worth your time” review from a site that no longer cares about its name and heritage and just wants to tell 40 year old moms what to see?Shit, just realized that insult carries less weight when it’s my age, too
This is one of the least glowing reviews I’ve read so far actually.
…and it gets an A-! I think that’s kind of the point. Grade inflation seems to have come to the AV Club.
That’s the question, though. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t and this is a really, really good movie. I plan to find out.
It has. Maybe this is a good movie, but there have been more A’s given since the cull than in the several years before. It’s like one or two a week now and it used to be maybe 5 or 10 a year.(I haven’t counted, that’s just my impression)
I was curious, so I did count. There’s actually only been one A given, to the admittedly undeserving Turning Red. There have been seven A- by my count:
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Apollo 10 1/2
Cow
Vortex
Happening
Men
Top Gun MaverickNow I’ve only see one of these, so I can’t say for sure, but it certainly seems that the quality of movies in the first half of 2022 is just quite good. Several of these are small, artsy-fartsy things that I imagine Dowd or Hassenger would have creamed their pants over anyway, so I can certainly see at least half of these getting an A- regardless. Actually, I’ve always thought the AV Club scored things a little too harshly. It never bothered me that a movie I liked got a C+ or whatever, I just knew to scale my expectations. I still plan to do that going forward, even if the new writers prove to be worse than the old crew.
For comparison, A.A. Dowd turned in four A- reviews in less than two months at the end of 2021:https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critics/aa-dowd/movies
I’d argue that Turning Red was the best film I’ve seen this year. And it’s a cartoon!
Turning Red was a great film that I loved, but it’s not an A movie by any means. It’s a solid B+.
I agree with most of your comment, but have to give a hearty BOOOO to the dig on Turning Red. It wasn’t well justified by the AVC review, but it deserved its A grade.
I tried to find an A.A. Dowd review for TGM but had no luck. I feel like I could rely on him to slap a dismissive C+ on this one.
Where are you A.A. Dowd?!!?! Screamed into an echo chamber.
In case you’re still looking, here’s Dowd’s review. He doesn’t rave like this writer, but it’s not a C+ either.https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/top-gun-maverick-review/
I have yet to find a review of this film that is anything less than stellar, and I’ve been looking.
AV Club existential crisis over here!
Well, Mark Wahlberg isn’t in this movie, so it gets a higher grade than Father Stu. What are you complaining about here?It’s weird to me that anyone would trust or not trust reviews of any particular website or publication instead of paying specific attention to the byline and deciding whose opinion matters and how much individually. Gilchrist has only written a few reviews for this site so far, and if I don’t exactly trust his opinion, I’m not ready to say he’s bad at this, let alone that he doesn’t “care about [the] name and heritage” of the AV Club, whatever that means. He’s given a C- to Doctor Strange, Sonic, and Morbius. That’s about as committed to the legacy of A.A. Dowd as anything I can imagine.
I’m absolutely trying to give the new staff the benefit of the doubt. But with the family of sites obviously pulling out every trick to monetize page views, it’s a fair question whether this is the work of a true cinephile or someone who was rejected for a job at TMZ.
I fully agree that it’s a fair question to ask whether reviews here are still meaningful, although the term “true cinephile” sets my hackles up. But it’s not a question we’ll really have an answer to without more data. In any case, we’re all still here after the latest nosedive in quality for GMO, so we can’t pretend our judgement is necessarily any better than the writers now working here without simultaneously judging ourselves for bothering to put up with it. The OP went off on the Father Stu review (a movie I didn’t see and have no interest in), because the reviewer (who was not Todd Gilchrist) bothered to watch the movie and judge it on its merits instead of summarily failing it because it had Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson in it. That, at the very least, is more evidence that the reviewer cares more about genuine criticism than getting clicks, since a scathing review about how shitty those actors are probably would have garnered more attention than a normal B- review about a movie nobody was going to see anyway. That’s the kind of review I might expect from TMZ, in fact.
I too have been observing Gilchrist since Dowd’s departure, hmmm.
Michael Martin’s reviews of Atlanta on the other hand are an absolute joke.
dude just floods the comments of his own article praising commenter critique and continually writing “aw I wish Id written that in my review” on commenters posts. So tacky.
I can’t keep track. Do we actually believe AVClub reviews anymore? Is this movie actually good? Does any staff here actually get what the community enjoyed anymore?The unsatisfying answer: AVC are in a transition period for staff, so, presuming Mr. Gilchrist stays on, we must adjust our expectations for both the reviewer’s and our particular biases over time. The reviewer was clearly impressed by the technical acumen on display and…umm…other things. If you can’t tell from my last sentence, I skimmed over the review because I just don’t care much about Top Gun or this deep dive into the IP mines, so I could probably shift the A- to a B-/C+. (Why did I bother reading it? Because it’s there.) On the other hand, the newest bit of Dr. Strange could probably be shifted to the B+/A- range, because I have a weakness for that shit (and Sam Raimi).The notion of some sort of community standard for these reviews is not new or unexpected, but it is maybe unreasonable in the current fragmented media landscape. Sure, we’re probably not going to get a extreme right-wing slant on these reviews, but there probably isn’t some sort of consensus AVC opinion, if there ever was.Letter grades are pointless exercises in pandering to dummies, even before aggregate sites came along and watered down an already watered down opinion. I also really wish that one review wouldn’t stand for all time as the singular, locked-in-time review on a site. It would be nice to see more voices weigh in on a piece of media…or to allow critics to go back and reappraise past reviews. I’m not asking for some fan-mandated redo of an unpopular review (or something like the kerfuffle that followed in the wake of that extremely unpopular Turning Red review on another site).YMMV. Different quirks for different jerks.
As much as I loved the ride that was Doctor Strange 2, you can’t possibly be insisting it was approaching an “A-” grade? I loved the visuals and the horror flairs of Sam Raimi but it basically had no plot. I just can’t give an A- to a film with no plot as visually stunning as it may be.
To be clear, I haven’t seen Strange M.D. and the Crazy Cosmos; this was more a speculation as to what the grade might be adjusted to, according to my tastes and predilections. The larger point (that may have been lost in the shuffle) was that everyone—both the viewer and reviewer—bring their own set of biases to any piece of media they experience, that the notion of an “objective” review is flawed from the conception.Plotless? I would assume that someone with your handle would be fine with rambling, shaggy dog stories:
Do we actually believe AVClub reviews anymore? Is this movie actually good?I understand those questions, but… this is by far not the only positive review of this movie I’ve seen. Everyone seems to just love it. Me? Never liked Top Gun at all, and have no interest in seeing this – so I’m not the audience for either movie. People can go ahead and like the movie and it can go ahead and make a billion dollars. Me, I’ll go see Dr Strange this weekend despite its less-than-stellar reviews, because… I’m the audience for that movie.
A website isn’t a person. A critic is a person. Maybe you have some trust that a website hires the “right” critics but this gets brought up every time the AV Club hired new critics. Dowd went through a ringer it felt like, and for what? Once people stop losing their “omg change” marbles, you establish a relationship or a frame of reference with a new critic. I can’t imagine how this is any different regardless of which website that critic writes for.“Does any staff here actually get what the community enjoyed anymore?”ugh gross, get over yourself on my behalf please
I mean, AVClub used to be aimed at a certain type of person that self selected here. That chose to work here. The site, due to consistent editorial standards and work, had a voice. Yes, not every author agreed on everything, but in general, there was a voice and opinion of the site. It’s what made this site different from, say, Yahoo Entertainment, or E!I’m saying those editors are gone, those standards are gone, that voice is gone, trust is gone.Sorry if my previously enjoying a site that has a voice I appreciated that is now gone due to private equity fuckery is “gross” to you.
It’s gross because it appears that you’ve defaulted to assuming it isn’t there before you’ve given them any appropriate amount of time to make that determination. I really don’t think the “Father Stu got a decent review so it must mean the new reviewers suck as opposed to being an objectively decent movie” argument holds the water you think it holds. Absent the blinders of confirmation bias, The AV Club has a proven track record of awarding positive reviews to many movies the majority of the readership are unlikely to be interested in. I mean, consider how much readership chaffing was done in the days the site could both take the piss out of the F&F franchise in one post while also fawning over some of the installments in their reviews.I think you’re allowing your anger about the management of the site and how it’s handled staffing decisions (and I assure you I think they’ve been positively shitty about this) to influence your perception of changes in quality or tone of new staff. Readers around here seem to go through the same thing every time there’s ownership change and staff turnover, and they always come up with some new editorial/tonality boogeyman that over and over turns out isn’t really there. PE ownership or not, critics are just critics, not stooges in some Machiavellian plan to .. what, increase readership by being deliberately favorable to movies with target audiences that don’t even read reviews?Based on the review above and your fear that this site might be turning into “pop culture surface reviews” .. I’m not sure how you can arrive at this fear based on this or even the Father Stu review. This was a long, well reasoned, well written review, as I’ve come to expect from the AV Club. I don’t think it’s wise to succumb to your desire to suspect ulterior motives.
It’s true, commenters here have always complained about the critics (with rare exceptions—I think Donna Bowman for instance was pretty beloved for her Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul coverage). I actually feel like people are being pretty kind to these new reviewers, though maybe that’s just because most of the regular commenters have moved on.
Yeah it really does boil down to “I enjoyed this and now I’m frustrated”. There’s no entitlement etc. I totally agree. And if anything am feeling a bit lost in all this as a reader.
but it’s been my routine to check this site on a regular basis for over a decade now so *sigh* I guess thats what I’ll keep doing…
Where are you Laserface!?!?!?
Remember Dikachu?
I’ll admit to being biased here—this looked like a steaming pile of shit based on the trailers, so I was expecting a middling-to-negative critical response. This glowing review took me completely by surprise, so much so that it read to me like a retooled press release. But every review I’ve looked at this morning is super positive! I dunno, I was a huge fan of the original Top Gun back in the day, but this sequel is clearly not for me. Even reading the reviews, none of the things being praised moves me at all. I see nothing new, just the same military fetishism and patriotic bullshit with a fresh coat of paint. Still, given these bleak times I don’t begrudge anyone getting a little old school escapist entertainment from this movie.
I feel like I saw the best parts of it already in the extended IMAX trailer prior to Dr Strange, which featured lots of flying.
I’m surprised that people are so impressed by the flying, actually. It was pretty awesome in the original Top Gun, back when stuff like this was still fairly novel, but doesn’t it seem a little ho-hum in 2022? On the other hand, reading that they actually filmed the actors in the air and didn’t just green screen everything makes me think it looks much cooler in the actual movie than in the brief shots from the trailer.
Fallout made for a pretty exciting helicopter chase, including Tom Cruise actually flying one of the helicopters. This is a different director, but it’s still Cruise so I won’t be surprised if they do something really cool here.
The insurance company must have wet their pants!
Actually, I would suspect not really because we simply don’t get many in-atmosphere dogfights. Sure, we get space battles with space fighters, but I’m having a hard time thinking of many movies with extended fighter jet dogfight scenes other than the Independence Day movies. Most movies that have fighter jets use them to save the heroes right before they’re about to die.
Yeah, you’re right, excellent point—I also can’t think of any recent films centered around your traditional fighter jet dogfights. I guess I actually was thinking more along the lines of Star Wars space battles as you pointed out. And it did make me more intrigued to learn that they actually filmed in the air instead of doing it all with effects.
That trailer made this movie seem completely unappealing to me. I guess maybe I’m just not the audience, but even so, the high praise is really surprising me.
When did all the hate for Tom Cruise as an actor abate? Is it just me?
You’re 40? Aw man is this what my future is going to look like? ffs.
Todd seems like a much more of a standard Hollywood movie reviewer—more of a junket/interview guy than a real critic—than the people who made this site successful. But this review seems to vibe with what I’m reading elsewhere, and unlike other recent AVC LA(tm) reviews, it doesn’t read like clickbait or provocation.
So, I have been expecting this to suck, but just about every reviewer on the planet is over the moon on this movie. So it is not like he is going out on left field here.
I’m about ready to stop coming here. It’s depressing, really, because I always counted on this site. Does anybody know where the old writers landed?
I went begrudgingly. I rarely watch action movies and never on my own. There was some nostalgic cheesiness that made me laugh, but ultimately, it sucked me in. I really did like it, not that my opinion matters because I’m a mom in my 40s.
Just saw it. It’s good. Really enjoyed it but I saw the first one ten times in the theatre so I’m sorta the target audience for this.
But wait – how does it fail to address traditionalistic gender roles and refuse to subvert them?
Because there’s not enough gay superheroes?
Batman.
ALL man!
Indeed.
Please tell me this is a reference to Rich Juzwiak’s review of “First Man”.
Nah, it was to Alison Foreman’s review of that Jennifer Biele vehicle, Candy, in which she criticised a show about a woman who kills another woman for not creating a story that subverted gender stereotypes and instead reinforced them by having a more chaste woman killing a “slut”……even though it’s literally based on a true story and that’s what happened.
Cockpits and joysticks everywhere. Not a yonic depiction of flight to be had.
You are required to maneuver down this trench and drop your torpedo in a small hole.
“Cockpits” are literally vaginas.
that’s the ‘danger zone’ in the song. Because vaginas scare the fuck out of Tom.
100% must-see on the biggest screen/loudest theater you can find.
Kneel before Cruise!
I ended up seeing it at the Chinese, in glorious IMAX, and while the actual experience of watching the film was fantastic, going to Hollywood & Highland on a Sunday was a huge fucking mistake. That place is a goddamn nightmare.
Jennifer Connelly’s character was referenced in the first movie?
Is she playing older than her actual age or is this an Indiana Jones thing where 24 year old Maverick was macking on a 15 year old Admiral’s daughter?
From the first movie:Stinger: Maverick, you just did an incredibly brave thing. What you should have done was land your plane! You don’t own that plane, the tax payers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash. You’ve been busted, you lost your qualifications as section leader three times, put in hack twice by me, with a history of high speed passes over five air control towers, and one admiral’s daughter!
Goose: Penny Benjamin?
Ah, so they based this character on a brief throwaway line. Since Stinger didn’t say “one admiral’s underage daughter” I’m going to assume Connelly’s character is two or three years older than her real life age.
You seem pretty preoccupied with underage girls.
Wow, that escalated quickly.
That’s what she said.
I think it was always a thing but maaaan the passed 5 or 6 years dudes loooove insulting other dudes by calling them pedofiles. Not at all defending pedofiles just saying as an insult slugged around, it’s really taken prominence among men. “Pedo man” etc.
You can’t even spell pedophiles, let alone defend them.
They are probably aging her up. Or ignoring it.
and YOU, asshole, you’re lucky to be here!
I am on the planet Earth so we are all unlucky to be here.
Maverick would have been long retired, and even Goose’s son would be at least approaching retirement, certainly not just starting out at flight school. It’s best not to think too much about it, I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
This is my biggest barrier to watching the movie. The Navy would have sent him packing eventually, regardless of how great a pilot he was. You don’t find many journeyman 60 year old Captains in the Navy. His son would be around 35 now, the age where he would be either CO or XO of a squadron.
Definitely. There’s no way a Captain with around 40 years in the Navy would still be around. It’s an up or out system. The longer he’s occupying space in the pipeline, the longer everyone behind him has to wait to advance. He’d have to retire after being passed over for Rear Admiral a couple of times.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Cruise will turn 60 this year and based on what I know about High Year Tenure (prior USAF), they would have “retired” him five years earlier as a Navy Captain. He still could be an instructor, but he would a civilian and not in the cockpit. Yeah, Teller is 35, not early t0 mid 20s when pilots train.
It’s Hollywood though, suspend disbelief and have fun.
Tom Cruise 60 is regular person 38.
Teller is 35, but Goose’s son was in the original movie, he looked to be around 4 or 5, so he would be in his 40’s now. Unless they’re making it a period piece, taking place around 15 years ago, the ages just don’t work. But hey, movie magic, I know I’m seeing it opening weekend.
The film actually start out reasonable realistic, he a test pilot for a presumably top secret Mach 10 aircraft. An was demonstrating that craft to a admiral.
Now if they built of that, he the only pilot trained for that vehicle, it would have made sense to bring him back into service. His job, simply to light up the target with flares so the rest of the task force can destroy it.
Have it be a rival nation Mach 10 plane, which unlike Maverick version actually can sustain flight at Mach 10. Have the two engage in combat.
Yeah, it’s kinda funny. Military films often forget about “up or out” policies within the services. Maverick clearly climbed the ranks during his career as a naval aviator, but you can’t stay a captain forever.
He may have been “macking on a 15 year old.” In 1986 it wasn’t such an uncool thing yet.
The really scary thing is that despite nearly 35 years passing since the first entry, Cruise doesn’t really look all that much older. He might still pass for being the love interest for 1986 Kelly McGillis.
In some interviews I’ve seen lately he’s sorta starting to finally look his age. It’s in the hair.
I’ve been trying to figure out the math on Goose’s son in the film. He was like 3 or 4 in the original which would make Miles Teller’s character around 40.
I feel like Connelly is actually meant to be playing Kelly McGillis’ character, since she and Cruise are meant to be playing two older ex-flames with a weighty history between them.Sadly, although McGillis is still working, she has not aged well and no longer looks like a good screen pairing with Cruise.
She’s listed on imdb as playing Penny Benjamin, which was referenced as an admiral’s daughter that Maverick had dated in the first one. I do wish they had included Charlie though, maybe a quick cameo as a senator or something.
Actors can play people who are different ages.But the Church probably has groomed women starting as young as 15 to “grow” into the role of “famous actor man’s potential wife.”
Just a reminder, Jennifer Connelly is 51 year old fine woman. She’s 9 years younger than Tom Cruise
For the stage of Maverick’s career that we see in Top Gun, the character was probably in his mid-20s. Given that he’s a commissioned officer, he probably either went to the Academy or did navy ROTC in college, so that means he could have potentially hooked up with an admiral’s daughter anytime since he was 18. The script doesn’t say when he had this fling, other than being sometime in the past, so likely he would have been quite young at the time too. Admirals are usually old enough to have college-age or young adult daughters, so ignoring how old Jennifer Connely is in real life, it could easily have been a very age-appropriate reltionship.
Also, Maverick’s father was a Navy aviator, so he’d have grown up in and around naval bases, gone to school with other Navy kids, etc…
Maverick didn’t go to the Academy – he couldn’t get in because he was Pete Mitchell’s kid.
call me crazy but I feel like back in the 80’s (when men were men) they would have crow-barred something like this (a hotshot test pilot hitting on an underage girl, even 1986 Jennifer Connelly) into the movie without a molecule of self-awareness or shame LOL
To be fair this movie was supposed to come out 2 years ago and was written/filmed 3-4 years ago…so with that in mind the ages fit
Obligatory…
he has a crisis of consonants until meets a Welsh woman LOL…fucking brilliant
The original was awful. I expect this one to be too. Not to mention the changes made to the movie with the seeming intent of appeasing Chinese resentment over the existence of Japan and Taiwan. (I understand the latter, I guess, but the former? It’s been near-100 years since WW2.)Hard pass. Fuck you.
Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m a little taken aback by the uncritical approval of this movie from reviewers. Even the reviews that note the fawning military fetishization and lazy recycling of bits from the original are basically just “lay back and enjoy it.”
I think being taken aback is understandable. It’s easy to forget that critics’ standards on average have eroded over the years. I wonder if the MCU is to blame. The idea of blockbuster movies actually being good so messed with their heads that they forgot to have standards.
Negative reviews in general seem to have fallen out of fashion, if all the “what’s the point of bad reviews?” think pieces over the past several years are any indication. I think you’re right that the MCU (along with Star Wars, etc.) has contributed to this trend. With these Maverick reviews, I sense an overall attitude of, “yeah, this movie is insipid and ridiculous, but what’s the point of reviewing this commercial blockbuster as if it’s an art film, be nice and don’t yuck people’s yum.” There isn’t much upside to writing a harsh review of a movie that’s part of a franchise with hyperdevoted fans. I imagine they get fewer views for your site, make the studios unhappy, and who needs the grief from outraged geeks? Better to just crank out the perfunctory rave that everyone wants anyway, collect your paycheck, and heavily self-medicate.
That’s a shame. I don’t have to believe or agree with every word a critic writes but I do want to know I’ve read their honest and, well, critical view. To my mind there should be a clear distinction between, say, “In the Name of the King” and “The Fellowship of the Ring.”
The original Top Gun is a masterpiece and I shan’t abide any blasphemy of it!
Not to mention the changes made to the movie with the seeming intent of appeasing Chinese resentment over the existence of Japan and Taiwan.I read about changing a patch on the back of his jacket. What other changes did they make?
That’s what I was referring to. Given that I knew from the outset this wasn’t a movie I’d want to see, I didn’t pay attention to any other potential changes.
Something tells me you find most movies featuring men who take care of their bodies a little offensive, unless those movies also cater to man children who think Marvel is good.
Only one response is appropriate: ?
Coincidentally, Judge Dredd graduated second in his class as well!
Was Rico first?
Yes.
Additional bit of trivia, Joseph Konsinski actually is trained as an architect, hence possibly the reference in the review to “architectural precision”.
I want to live in Tom Cruise’s apartment in Oblivion so bad. (And I always tell people I go for Tron: Legacy vibes with my interior decorating!)
I really liked that movie TBH.
I think Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko would have breakfast together on that set during filming, or maybe it was just that they had breakfast together and I’m adding in that detail about the set by mistake. Not entirely sure if I’m remembering things quite right.But you would if you could, wouldn’t you?
I think they did the sky backgrounds with rear-projection or a proto-AR wall or something rather than green screen, so it would have been pretty cool to just hang out in.
The movie as a whole is quite pretty to look at.
Right? After that movie I was trying to figure out if it would actually be possible to make a pylon that tall or if I’d have to do it with blimps or something…
So was Art Garfunkel.
Hence “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”. Although ironically, Paul Simon actually wrote that one.
Knowledge successfully kicked. Ironically, he wrote all of them. Well, I don’t think he wrote them ironically. He just wrote them.
IRON EAGLE
I rewatched that two weeks ago out of a misguided sense of nostalgia, and my god, Top Gun is Citizen Kane compared to that movie.The fun thing about the Iron Eagle series(!) of films, though, is that each subsequent movie makes the preceding one look like a masterclass of filmmaking by comparison.
I saw it in the theater when it first came out! Here’s what I remember: there are planes in it.
The Highlander approach to sequels.
IN LOU GOSSETT JR. WE TRUST
FIREBIRDSPossibly the worst me-too cash-in ever.
FIRE WALKER
LION
Full circle will be when an older Joel Goodsen finds himself out of a job and sends his family away on vacation to run a brothel from his home in order to pay the mortgage. Lana returns. Now a madam. Her only price is a crystal egg given by his mother to his future wife as a token of love. What’s it gonna be Joel…your house or the egg; your wife’s prized possession.
Sometimes you just gotta say “what the fuck.”Goodbye egg.
just go ahead and take my ticket money now LOL
They showed an extended scene of this movie before Dr. Strange when I saw it in IMAX and, I have to say, the aerial footage was pretty mind blowing. Putting the actors in real F-18s adds a level of verisimilitude that couldn’t be achieved any other way. The Gs they pull are absurd at times and there’s no CGI that could convincing replicate the effect that has on the actors.
No matter how he looks, Tom Cruise is not a young man. I wouldn’t be surprised if he blacked out multiple times filming this movie.
I dunno, I bet he has stronger heart and lung function than most people half his age.
I would bet money that he doesn’t, no matter what his OT level claims. He’d eat a baby on camera to have his 30 year old body back.
have you seen the video of him leap-frogging over Keegan Michael Key recently? he may not have his 30 year old body back but that’s not going to stop him from acting like he doesn’t. maybe along with the extremely awkward interviews we have to look forward to for the next month or so, he’ll throw in some awesome physical feats to keep giving that middle finger to the laws of nature again.
I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that was a Tom Cruise lookalike haha.
I thought that too because I have seen some extremely realistic Tom Cruise videos floating around lately that *might* be deep fakes, OR (as was the case with KMK) I assumed it was the real Cruise because he’s just so awkward interacting with real humans LOL.
Cruise is also a pilot in his own right and the P-51 that appears in the sequel is his personal aircraft.
I blacked out multiple times just watching this movie!Might have been the booze, though.
I am glad this is getting decent reviews as I do have a soft spot for the first film. Though something about Miles Teller’s mannerisms and voice bug me which is mean but it’s just one of those things because I don’t think he is bad actor or anything but I will probably still watch it.
A lot of the reviews are similarly glowing; I’m surprised! Tron: Legacy and Oblivion were both pretty flawed but really gorgeous and memorable, and I’m happy Kosinski finally has a good script. (Never saw his fireman movie.) Hope this doesn’t bomb.
I don’t think Oblivion was flawed. It was just a relatively quiet movie for a space adventure, and kind of came and went.
I thought it was horribly stupid, for the same reason that ruined the original Top Gun: the conceit that the whole world existed to make the Tom Cruise character look cool. In Oblivion he plays a seeming astronaut/secret agent who learns that he’s actually one of a million identical clones doing menial work for the aliens—and proceeds to go on acting like he thinks he’s Tom Cruise.
See I thought it was pretty slick that even though he’s a clone, he behaves as if he’s the original and everyone else is a replicant. Because that’s exactly how you’d naturally react. “Holy shit they made clones of me!”
I do like how this new Top Gun is more about him realizing it’s okay to let go of the spotlight
I admit that I’m shocked how glowing the reviews have been. I just could not see how they could make Top Gun work as a concept now. Looks like they did.
Over time it has become clear that Tom Cruise has exceptionally high standards for the movies he’s in. I may not be in the mood for a Cruise film 95% of the time, but I get the sense he puts in significantly more effort (which means a lot to the quality of the overall movie) than most of his peers in the industry.
I don’t think Cruise’s Mummy film was as bad as it’s commonly said to be, but it fit no one’s idea of “exceptionally high standards”.
I’ll give you that one.
he *insisted* on being tethered to the side of an airplane *as it took off*, which is one of my nightmare scenarios that I didn’t even realize I had until I watched it happen LOL. His Scientologist bullshit is extremely off-putting but I respect the hell out of his commitment at any cost to put stuff on film that is thrilling and unforgettable and iconic (his insurance underwriters probably vigorously disagree LOL).
He piloted his own helicopter while operating a camera, too. One of my longstanding takes is that all that shit he does deserves at least as much credit as, like, what Leo was praised for doing in The Revenant in terms of acting craft.
you’re right, I’ve never thought of Cruise as a “great actor” but he is extremely good at a few things such as running very fast and clenching his jaw to imply anger LOL, and of course his movies almost always make a shit-ton of money, so I’m surprised he hasn’t scored an Oscar for something.
No thanks. He looks like a soggy rodent.
So wait are people gonna say you like nothing after giving this an A-! lol!I’m dying to see this and will go as soon as I can.Read your Dr. Strange Review (after I saw it) and will say C- a little hard, I think C+ because I also didn’t think it was too good. More average at best.Still can’t wait to see Maverick back on the big screen!
…even as Kilmer shows up for a brief and tender cameo highlighting both the wisdom that comes with getting older, and the heartbreaking vulnerability.Fuck cancer.
Instead of Jon Hamm they should’ve cast H. Jon Benjamin instead because Archer singlehandedly kept Danger Zone a thing throughout the twenty first century.
Why not cast them both? Jon H. and H. Jon is the action-comedy duo we all deserve.
They’re both in Wet Hot American Summer, though I don’t think they share screen time.
Now I’m just making weird comparisons:
Bob’s father (Big Bob) owned a restaurant, Bob owns a restaurant. Maverick’s father was a naval aviator (and also presumably a maverick).
Bob has a sweet mustache, Tom Skerritt has a sweet mustache.
Bob is frequently exasperated by his rebellious kids, James Tolkan was frequently exasperated by his rebellious charges.
Bob sang the shit out of “Bad Stuff Happens In The Bathroom”, Maverick jammed the shit out of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and “Great Balls Of Fire”.
There’s probably some more.
Bob has a best friend that seemingly had a non-fatal head injury. Maverick had a best friend that <..... spoiler alert .... > had a fatal head injury.
I bet Cruise would have co-signed on this as eagerly as I would just to have a scene partner that he doesn’t have to wear lifts for LOL
The irony of this is having seen it, Hangman (either the actor or how he plays the character or maybe both) is an absolute dead ringer for Archer’s Barry. The voice is almost identical, and there’s even a physical resemblance (and plenty of overlapping character traits.) It’s honestly all I could think about whenever he was on screen.
Serious but not very important question that I’m too lazy to look up: did the first movie establish that Goose had a kid?Also, how could they not cast Ryan Gosling for the role? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?
Yeah, Goose’s kid was with them in the bar, he arrived with Meg Ryan. He was sitting on top of the piano when they sang “Great Balls of Fire”. It’s kind of hard to reconcile the age though, he looked like he was no older than 5 in 1986, which would make the Miles Teller character 41 today.
Miles Teller is 35. It’s not that much a stretch.
Along the same line, we would need to believe that Maverick is still an active duty pilot at age 60. Tom Cruise was exactly the right age for the role of a junior pilot in 1985. He’s too old to be even a senior military pilot now, although I’m sure he can play the role effectively in a movie.
I was going to make a Tom Skerritt observation, but it looks like he was 51 or 52 when the first one was filmed.
And Skerritt’s character was a teacher, not an active-duty pilot.
…and since I felt compelled to look it up after seeing the film: Tom Skeritt’s still kicking at 88 (just not in the actual movie).
I think it’s just easier to assume less time has passed in the Top Gun universe than has passed in ours.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Cruise will turn 60 this year and based on what I know about High Year Tenure (prior USAF here), they would have “retired” him five years earlier as a Navy Captain. He still could be an instructor, but he would a civilian and not in the cockpit.Yeah, Teller is 35, not early t0 mid 20s when pilots initially train.
It’s Hollywood though, suspend disbelief and have fun.
Doubt anyone’s still reading this, but would his status as a test pilot maybe circumvent that requirement? I mean he’s sort of “brought back” to the Navy.
Oh, right, I forgot Meg Ryan was even in the original. It’s, uh, been a while.
Teller is already past the age the Air Force allows to even accept pilots for training, to say nothing of the Navy’s TOPGUN school, which exists for experienced pilots.
But worth noting: they shot this 4 years ago, so….?
If this was filmed 4 yeara ago, then maybe a Maverick that aged sequentially with the real Tom Cruise could possibly have been at the very end of his military career, but he would have needed some command positions under his belt to have lasted that long.
It would actually be in the spirit of the original that all kinds of rules were bent to accommodate Maverick’s ego.
Im genuinely in awe that this is getting such good reviews. Everyone behind the camera have made some rather middling to low quality films and a sequel to a 30 plus year old film rarely turns out well. I’ll be damned.
I enjoy the occasional Tom Cruise movie—the finest cinematic running guy ever—and I do think he reaches a standard of fun blockbuster most of the time, but this one leaves me bored just looking at the dots on the trailer. “We’re the best of the best? Who can they get to train us?” Whoever came before you? With actual experience? Duh? (Ukrainians right now.) With scintillating dialogue, even if I was up for a love the military movie right now I’d be bored.I’m surprised by all the love for Kosinski. Oblivion and Tron: Legacy are beautiful movies, but kinda lifeless. Oblivion was an actionier version of Moon, without an actor to Sam Rockwell to live it up, and Legacy was a prettier still sequel of a movie that, if I’m honest, is more boring than I remember in the first place. Architectural is right–so what do you fill it space with other than walls?
Saw it twice this weekend and I’ll say it’s really tightly directed. The pacing is quite perfect, tone is solid, it’s shot tremendously good. I’m not a big follower of Kosinski’s work, but this is helmed very well.
The student becomes the teacher in Joe Kosinski’s exhilarating legacyquelSequel. We can just call it a sequel, guys. I mean, I know Hollywood likes to mess around with prequels and reboots and reimaginings and the like, but what you’re describing is clearly just a belated sequel. We don’t need to give Hollywood any more bullshit meaningless jargon to try and glam up what’s basically just their microwaved leftovers.
Seconded.
*legacyeconded
I enjoyed saying “legacyquel” out loud to myself. I would allow it just for how it trips off the tongue.
Legacymorbutts
You can legacy yourself out.
But how else will we distinguish them from the legacy-less sequels whose predecessors are almost entirely forgotten, like with Star Wars IV: A New Hope?
I do think it’s an important distinction. Sequels are sequels, legacyquels have Something To Say about the passing of time, and, in the case of films like Maverick and Blade Runner 2049, I find that pretty interesting. Too many movies with old stars try to recapture exactly what they had in their youth without acknowledging that things change.
A minus? WOW. I didnt expect this movie to be anything except a total piece of shit.
I am interested in seeing this because I liked the original way back when and because Cruise has generally pretty high quality output (and is a creepy Scientoligist, I know). That being said… the inclusion of Miles Teller is a bit weird for me. Maybe he was critically acclaimed in stuff I missed (Whiplash comes to mind) but he seems like a pretty replaceable actor that for whatever reason, Hollywood insists on making happen (like Sam Worthington or Josh Gad).
it’s interesting to see all the inexplicable hate for Miles Teller (I thought he did well in Whiplash) and compare that to the cult-like devotion for Johnny Depp in spite of the whole “raping Amber Heard with a bottle” thing we’re hearing about daily. It definitely makes clearer why producers will sometimes make absolutely inexplicable casting decisions about people just to get those blindly devoted asses in those theater seats.
True. I don’t even hate Teller. He seems like a perfectly fine and capable actor, but it seems like Hollywood overvalues him and expects us to as well. My toaster isn’t changing the world, but it is a perfectly fine, usable, and respectable kitchen appliance.Agreed that the Johnny Depp fascination is odd. My guess is that there are just not enough easily identifiable weirdos with his track record (Jim Carrey maybe?), so they keep going to that well. Not a defensible position, but, ya know… Hollywood.
Miles Teller is the kitchen appliance of young Hollywood actors, LOL. Great comparison. I get the feeling that producers keep putting him in stuff until we like him like they did with Ryan Reynolds (although even then RR had more going for him than MT does now) but eventually RR found his happy place and he’s a movie star, maybe MT will stumble into his happy place at some point.
Depp lost his plum franchise roles, though. So the analogy falls apart pretty quickly.
if MEL GIBSON is still getting work, Depp will be just fine, it may not be as Captain Jack like he wants or exactly when he wants, but he will not go hungry at night LOL. I guarantee Hollywood studios have seen the rabid devotion of his fans and they are planning to exploit that cultism soon enough.
I re-watched Tron: Legacy a few days ago and I continue to love that movie.That is all.
Tron: Legacy is great.
It’s a great movie with an absolute charisma vacuum at its center in Garrett Hedlund. Make Olivia Wilde the headstrong heir and Hedlund the naive sentient program and it’s perfect.
Yeah, I saw it in theaters three times when it came out and it was worth it every single time. It’s funny because I think both it and Oblivion are highly underrated. Something about Kosinski’s style just gels with me, I guess.
I wish they’d re-release it in IMAX 3D because, while it has its faults, watching and hearing it in that format is like having your eyes and ears massaged for a couple of hours.Oblivion was gorgeous on a big screen too.
He was actually Top Lawyer with daddy issues twice. In A Few Good Men his dad had been attorney general and died before his son could graduate Harvard Law! Every time he steps into the courtroom he’s arguing against the ghost of a dead lawyer!Which totally advanced the plot of the movie.
This review mentions NOTHING about the soundtrack, which everyone knows was 50% of the allure and lasting legacy of the first film. How good are the songs and do they PUMP YOU UP ?!?
It’s been confirmed that Danger Zone is in it.
The one thing that I take from the multiple glowing reviews is that it’s pretty much guaranteed to not be awful, which is really all I ask from it. I’m a little bummed about them just handwaving away the statutory DOPMA limits for him still being in. A while back, a few of us figured out a somewhat realistic scenario which would have worked: he could have gotten out in the 90s and then came back in post-9/11. A number of people actually did that precise career path, and it would have worked well with the character and fit under how he could have still been in as an O-6 all these years later. It also would have been a hilarious flashback to see him be a terrible fit as a commercial pilot.This will be the first movie I’ll see in a theater since COVID, so I’m looking forward to it.
there’s seemingly nothing he can’t do in an airplane. Airplane… race car. I see what you did there Todd.
I have only just, in the last few months, begun to approach the point at which I am willing to accept the neologism “threequel,” but you can take “legacyquel” and . . . keep using it I guess because I’m old and wrong about everything.
I never understood that 500 percent recruitment increase thing. Did these recruits think they could get into flight school and fly the F-14? Of that 500 percent, 99.9999 percent ended up swabbing decks or, at best, maybe a tech job.
“Did these recruits think they could get into flight school and fly the F-14?”Yes.Also the sweaty beach vollyball dudes, I bet.
The recruiters, of course, will gladly say, “Yes, join the navy and you too “could” be a pilot.” Its not a total lie, after all, and much less so if they were applying for navy ROTC.
Recruiters seem to have a wide latitude of just how far they could stretch the truth.When I was in high school, I had a Marine recruiter hint to me that if I would just enlist right now I would be able to choose my duty post. Only when I repeatedly pressed him on it did he admit that “choose” meant “request with zero chance of actually happening”.
I remember being dragged to watch Top Gun by my girlfriend (that and Lost Boys, ugh) at the time and thinking “what kind of bullshit premise is this that is dragging a bunch of inexperienced pilots into something that could potentially become WW3, while the Cold War was still basically in effect?” and also “who the fuck would volunteer for the Navy thinking they’ll be a pilot?” but then I have always been kind of an over-thinker LOL.it was 1986, Reagan was president, Rambo had come out the year before, and militaristically speaking, America had a huge, throbbing, rock-hard military erection. Reagan could probably have re-instituted the draft just for shits and grins and 75% of the male populace would have enlisted.
I volunteered for the Navy thinking I’d be a pilot. It didn’t work out because I tubed the depth perception part of the vision test in flight school, but I became an NFO (what Goose, Slider, and Tim Robbins are in the original Top Gun). 25 years later, I’m still at it. Well, I’m still in the Navy anyway; unless you’re Maverick in this movie you fly a lot more desks than planes after a while. I’d do it all again in a minute.
I had a vague interest in being a pilot until I saw the underwater test from An Officer and a Gentleman that almost killed poor David Caruso (that was him, right?) and that settled it for me LOL.
That test (the “Jet Dunker”) actually isn’t that bad. It’s over fast, and comes relatively late in water survival training so by then you’re pretty comfortable being in the pool in flight gear and boots. The “Helo Dunker” has the potential to be worse. You and seven fellow students are strapped to seats inside a giant metal cylinder with some holes cut in it simulating a helicopter cabin, and which sinks in the pool and flips upside down before you can unstrap and exit through the same holes all your buddies are trying to get through. We did it several times, including a couple blindfolded runs and one where the lights in the pool were out, strobe lights simulated lightning, and sprinklers were running to simulate rain and spray. No one really panicked, but there’s nothing graceful about eight blindfolded people trying to get out of a giant beer can under water; accidental kicks to the face and stuff like that were common. Much worse for me was the “2, 2, and Inflate,” which was the event in the Water Torture Olympics where you had to tread water for two minutes in a complete set of flight gear and boots, do a dead man’s float for another two minutes, and then inflate your vest by blowing into the tubes near your waist without touching the side of the pool or looking like you’re freaking out. I was a rower in college so I showed up for flight school with pretty much no body fat, which I found out later is a distinct liability in the pool. Fat floats but everything else on you sinks, so if you have no fat swimming is OK but to tread water you have to constantly work hard to not sink like a stone. Remedial swimming in flight school was pretty much a reunion of the Naval Academy basketball, track, crew, and cross-country teams. Years later when I came back for refresher training after putting on a little unsightly but buoyant fatty weight, it got a lot easier.
no, no, and NO LOL. None of those tests sounds appealing at all. For some reason though being held underwater upside down while restrained by a harness sounds like a nightmare made real. The last test sounds vaguely like something I saw in a SEAL training documentary years ago, except in that one as I recall there were guys in the water trying to drown you LOL.
Joe Kosinski, Tom Kezanski. Kosinski, Kezanski, tomato, tomato.
I have no problem with the idea that Miles Teller makes you believe he is Goose’s son through his appearance or demeanor (and unlike some of you I really have no beef with Teller in general). Just from the trailers he reasonably looks the part. But you’re telling me he really dresses exactly like his dad, and sings the same song (that was already an oldie in the 80’s) in the exact same context in this movie and it doesn’t come off as very weird or forced? I know a lot of guys who are a lot like their dads (myself included), but don’t dress like them and re-enact very specific things they did. Without context that’s kind of weird and seems exceptionally lazy on the part of the writers… as in “You can tell he’s Goose’s son because he dresses just like him and does the same things he does… you know how all sons perfectly mimic their fathers.” I know I should see it before judging. Maybe I’m overthinking this.
“it doesn’t come off as very weird or forced”Remember, this is a kid whose dad died in a flight incident when he was five-ish. He’s gonna be a little messed up.
Nice to see that Jon Hamm’s career trajectory of playing bureacratic killjoys and/or third-bananas in major motion pictures continues apace. (along with the occasional comedic guest star parts to diminishing returns.)Jon, get yourself another TV show. Yes, “Mad Men” is an impossible act to follow, but is this really the future you envision for yourself?
no shit that actors prefer to have career-defining roles and job security for years in highly regarded vehicles
Why does Goose Jr. blame Maverick for his dad’s death? It’s fucking Iceman’s fault for not disengaging when Maverick had the better firing position, leading to Mav flying through Ice’s jet wash that ultimately lead to Goose’s fatal ejection.
But what everyone wants….needs…to know…. Volleyball sequence?
the same fearlessness and resolute commitment he has brought to seemingly every other challenge in his recent career
Cruise has become increasingly generous towards his co-stars in recent years […] a big part of their respective successes involved Cruise clearing a path for them despite his marquee status.
Cruise wields his singular Hollywood stature as effortlessly as his
character does the joystick of an F/A-18 Super Hornet, reminding
audiences why they’ve loved him for more than four decades.
even more than his character, Tom Cruise does that better than just about anyone.
Jesus Fucking Christ, did Tom Cruise’s publicist write this review?
Making a sequel to Top Gun isn’t bringing Cruise’s stardom full circle. That would require making a sequel to Risky Business. I’m not sure if running an illegal brothel would still be the sort of thing that impresses Ivy League school admissions, though.
Obligatory “I’m not an American so maybe I don’t understand the culture” but they’ve played the trailer for this before the last few films I saw and it came off largely as masculinity stroking, military propaganda, enlistment bait. Is it good in *spite* of all that, or is that what audiences enjoy?
So are we just ignoring The Color of Money passing the torch from Newman to Cruise?
F tom cruise. Gotta love all the miltary loving, Scientology sucking that’s going on for this latest Tom Cruise release. Amazing. Just amazing
I was 21 when Top Gun came out and saw it ten times in the theatre (at least). The college house I lived in that summer was not air-conditioned and the theatre, a block away, was. Plus we could take beer in. I love that stinkin’ movie and am glad this is finally being released! (And getting good reviews!)
I fell asleep halfway through watching the original Top Gun on VHS back in 2002 and am very concerned about my ability to follow the intricacies of the plot of this sequel. Please advise.
I think this film is getting nominated for Best Picture. I don’t think it will win, but it’s universally loved in a way that action films very rarely are
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1212635840/top-gun-generation-t-shirt-either-we
I just saw this at the Hawaii premiere. To say I went in skeptical would be an understatement, but I loved it. It was awesome in the true sense of that word, and I intend to see it again in IMAX when it comes out.To be sure, it was not an “art film.”It was not “intellectually stimulating.”It might not have even been “good.”But it was awesome.
I’m a broken record here, but why are we talking about this movie without CONFRONTING this asshole about his “religion” and the damage it does? Everyone is sucking his dick now about his stunts, the Queen, blah blah blah. He is a disgusting fucker that uses slave labor and shuns his own daughter. Fuck him and his fucking hangar. If you are unfamiliar, watch “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”
Yeah but did they bring back Richard Marx?
Y’know…this was fun. I had a good time at this movie.
For me the best bit of this film was watching Tom Cruise plane get blown of the sky. Shame the director and writers didn’t have the guts to end the film there and show the whole exercise was futile because well someone watch star wars and realise building a big vent visible for the world to see is stupid. An destroying the vent did zero damage to the facility underneath it because it a diversion.
An fast forward 6months and Iran, I mean the unnamed nation detonates a nuke anyway. Making all the lives futile.
Now that would have been a good film.