Called the #1 Dad Movie of all time. Am I Dad? Are we all Dad?
I’m late to the game here. I had heard that Top Gun: Maverick had broken all the earning records. I had heard that it was immediately universally loved. As a GenXer who grew up in the 80s, Top Gun is just one of those movies that holds a lot of brain space. It’s unavoidable. Inescapable. I mean, I didn’t go out and join the navy because I thought that Tom Cruise had shown me a vision of what real life on a big boat with fast planes was really like …but I did see an actual classmate at my actual elementary school lip sync “Dangerzone” at a talent show, in flight suit with helmet. That kid had full size adult balls and should have been able to immediately enlist as an officer at the age of ten.
Centering on a group of Maverick trained pilots who have to perform an impossible maneuver to destroy a uranium facility in an unnamed middle east country that is obviously …Sshhhh… Iran. They are tasked with performing a low-flying, pinpoint precision, high climb, dogfight, objective which has to be led by Maverick, when he proves to the training pilots that it can be done after, I swear, STEALING A PLANE to show that it is possible, because, “it’s the plane, not the pilot.”
There are a lot of nods to the original Top Gun. From the motorcycle, to the beach football, to baby Goose (fine, Rooster…) playing the piano just like daddy Goose, and singing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.” And no one DARE forget that Val Kilmer makes a brief but absolutely wrenching return as Lt. Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky. Is it exactly what you expected? Absolutely. But to all of those Rotten Tomatoes reviewers who are a small minority but expected this movie to be, I don’t know, Citizen Kane I guess… YOU ARE NO FUN. Calling it bland and basic is so obviously missing the point that I wonder… girl, you ok? I think you need to have your keyboard privileges revoked so that you can have some quiet time. And did you even see OG Top Gun? Is it silly? YOU BET. Maverick is just that with a better story.. and seriously, SERIOUSLY, badass flight scenes. Now I know that I was several drinks in from the opening credits when we watched this, but they were so well done that when Maverick banked left, I banked left in my seat. 10/10 high fives because I got a little motion sick it was so good.
The end is pretty speedy, Maverick chooses Rooster as his wingman, the mission is a pretty straightforward success, but Maverick is shot down, and Rooster returns to rescue him. Maverick and Penny Benjamin actually ride off into the sunset. No one even pretends that we aren’t wrapping everything in a bow.
I still don’t understand why every movie doesn’t have a happy ending this aggregious.
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
