Speed:Need Ratio - Top Gun: Maverick, Reviewed

In many ways, Top Gun: Maverick is the most unlikely of sequels; a return to a militaristic aviation fantasy, three and a half decades on. Since the first Top Gun came out, we have seen the end of the Soviet Union and American planes at war in a few different places, notably Iraq and Afghanistan. The world has come a long way since then in some ways, while in others the regression is palpable. So can a Top Gun sequel still work? And more importantly, is it worth your time and money to see it?

It certainly works - you have to allow a little fudging around the timeline, and the biggest suspension of disbelief is in forgetting Tom Cruise turns 60 this July (surprisingly easy, given how he looks), but it works. And frankly, it is a better story than the first TG, a jock film where the sport is air combat maneuvering.

Early in the film, Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell receives a dressing down from Admiral Cain (Ed Harris), who quickly exposits the idea that Maverick has overstayed his welcome, not only as an SR-73 test pilot but in a navy where aviation is becoming more and more the province of uncrewed vehicles and drones. 

Look at him - he looks, what, about 40 here? Maybe?!

Luckily another admiral (Val Kilmer, reprising his role as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky) wants him to train a group of hotshot pilots for an impossible mission in an unnamed country which bears an almost uncanny resemblance to the original 1977 Death Star attack. And so the veteran pilot travels to San Diego (not Miramar, this time!) where he must prove himself not only to senior officers who doubt him but much younger dogfighters unimpressed by his reputation.

Foremost among them is Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Mitchell's former backseater and RIO, "Goose," whose beef with his instructor is deeper than just having been present when his father died. Yes, the marketers actually held a few things back from the trailer, bless their pointy little heads, and so there are a couple of surprises to be found in what could have been a very cookie cutter film.

Make no mistake, Top Gun: Maverick is by no means a challenging or arthouse film, but it does surprisingly well in the quieter moments, especially those involving a rekindled romance between Mitchell and Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), the infamous "Admiral's daughter" from the first film. None of the relationships feel given away, all of the interactions feel earned and make sense. And I tell you what, the scene between Cruise and Kilmer is kind of minimalist, but was masterfully done, and was the heart of the movie for me.

Even the rivals are rational, and the plot (as thin as it is in places) never needs to be advanced by stupid people. When the final mission finally arrives, the enemies remain faceless behind tinted visors, and the real villains are time and terrain. The filmmakers and in particular director Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion, Tron: Legacy) do a wonderful job explaining the challenges and linking them to the drills during the training sessions that make up so much of the film.

But let's be honest here - the other elements are all good, but if you aren't into planes at least a little bit, I am not sure this movie is really for you. Pretty much all the action sequences take place in the sky and/or cockpit, and are at least as well filmed as any in Tony Scott's original. To be fair though, Tony didn't have the option of cramming an astonishing 16 IMAX cameras into the cockpit of a single plane, did he?

F/A 18 Hornets, both dual and single-seat versions, are the aircraft of choice for this film, and they look marvellous in their ACM sequences and streaking through canyons at high rates of speed. If the theme of Planes Go Fast has any appeal to you whatsoever, you will want to see this movie on as big a screen as you can manage. We saw it in IMAX which was marvellous and also gave the tremendous foley work and sound capture a chance to shine, as well as the score, which combines Harold Faltermeyer's original work with new material from Hans Zimmer. And Glory and I lead the charge of turbine-loving in our household, but Audrey and Fenya had a great time too.

This review may have been a waste of time for me to write in some ways -with a $151 million opening weekend (a career-best for Tom Cruise), you may already have seen it, or made up you mind you are going to. But if you are on the fence, I will say this: there is indeed more to the movie than just jets. Not a whole heck of a lot more, but it is there. And the jets? 

They are wonderful!