Top Gun: Maverick

I was reluctantly dragged into the theater, thinking that they didn't need to make a Top Gun 2 and that the first one was where that story needed to end.

I could write a couple paragraphs to summarize my feelings after walking out of the theater, but I'm going to leave it with just one sentence.

I was wrong.

There are so many references to the original that I was brought to childhood when I had first seen it.

The best cinematic experience of my life and a perfect gift to all Top Gun fans.

In one of the more memorable lines in the original Top Gun, Maverick gets chewed out by a superior who tells him, "Son, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash." Sometimes I wonder if Tom Cruise took that putdown as a personal challenge. No movie star seems to work harder or push himself further than Cruise these days. Ridiculously entertaining Top Gun: Maverick. Cruise was in his early 20s when he first played Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, the cocky young Navy pilot with the aviator sunglasses, the Kawasaki motorcycle and the need for speed. In the sequel, he's as arrogant and insubordinate as ever: Now a Navy test pilot in his late 50s, Maverick still knows how to tick off his superiors, as we see in an exciting opening sequence where he pushes a new plane beyond its limits. Partly as punishment, he's ordered to return to TOPGUN, the elite pilot-training school, and train its best and brightest for an impossibly dangerous new mission. And so the three screenwriters of Top Gun: Maverick - including Cruise's regular Mission: Impossible writer-director, Christopher McQuarrie - have taken the threads of the original and spun them into an intergenerational male weepie, a dad movie of truly epic proportions. They're tapping into nostalgia for the original, while aiming for new levels of emotional grandeur. To that end, the soundtrack features a Lady Gaga song, "Hold My Hand." It's nowhere near as iconic a chart topper as the original movie's "Take My Breath Away," but tugs at your heartstrings nonetheless. The action sequences are much more thrilling and immersive than in the original. You feel like you're really in the cockpit with these pilots, and that's because you are: The actors underwent intense flight training and flew actual planes during shooting. In that respect, Top Gun: Maverick feels like a throwback to a lost era of practical moviemaking, before computer-generated visual effects took over Hollywood. You start to understand why Cruise, the creative force behind the movie, was so driven to make it: In telling a story where older and younger pilots butt heads, and state-of-the-art F-18s duke it out with rusty old F-14s, he's trying to show us that there's room for the old and the new to coexist. He's also advancing a case for the enduring appeal of the movies and their power to transport us with viscerally gripping action and big, sweeping emotions.

I don't share everyone's unbridled enthusiasm for this film. It is indeed a great popcorn flick, with outstanding aerial photography and maneuvers. But 10 stars? There are few, if any, movies that are perfect, and deserve that kind of rating.

The problem with the film is the plot. It is so filled with age-worn cliches that one could easily tell what was coming from beginning to end. I mean, you had to know who was going to save the day at the end, and you had to know what was going to happen when Maverick jumped out of Penny's window. Those are just two examples of the many obvious plot points that you could see coming a mile away. I could list them all, but it would take up too much space here. Basically the entire plot was entirely predictable.

The opening scene, especially, was straight out of Hollywood Screenplay Writing 101. I mean, seriously, how many times have we seen that subplot? Countless.

There were no characters in the movie, either. They were all caricatures, stereotypes. No depth to any of them. They had their standard roles to play, and that was it.

Did I enjoy the film? Sure, it was fun. Especially on a big theater screen with a loud sound system. Did I take anything away from the film? Did it make me think about anything after it was over? Nah. Will I see it again? Nah.

I will give Tom Cruise credit for including Val Kilmer in the cast. Considering his health problems, that was a nice touch.

So, yeah, enjoy the film. Sit back with your bag of popcorn and enjoy the g-forces. But don't pretend it is anything other than just another summer blockbuster.

Top Gun (1986) made Tom Cruise a star, and now 36 years later he jumps back in role of Pete Mitchell AKA Maverick almost like he never left.

Maverick never seems let his age slow him down, and still is cocky has ever, and is ordered to train a bunch of young pilots for a deadly mission, but sees a little bit of himself in them, and must get them working together has a team.

Tom Cruise is great has Maverick, who is coming to terms with the past. Miles Teller and Glen Powell are also great, and not to mention Jennifer Connelly. But the flying scenes are what makes this movie, you feel like your flying with them. Feels has real has ever. A terrific sequel 36 years worth the wait.