Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
4.5/5
Top Gun: Maverick is easily one of the summer’s best blockbusters and also, undoubtedly, one of the best theatre experiences I’ve had in a long time.
This film is the long-awaited sequel to 1986’s box-office smash Top Gun, a movie that, I have to admit, I really didn’t like. I thought the original Top Gun had a couple of cool flight sequences and an incredible, Oscar-winning soundtrack, but that was really it. This film, however, is, surprisingly, far better on almost every level. The character work is better. The story is better. The scenes where characters have to talk to each other are—thank goodness—better. This movie is awesome and is well worth your time and money.
How is this story better that the first one? Well, it gives the pilots a reason to go up in the planes. In the first Top Gun, the pilots basically just get into the planes to one up each other. In this movie, they actually have a mission that they have to learn to work together to achieve, which is a vast improvement over the first movie.
Another thing that I quite enjoyed is the cast. The actors do a top-notch job in giving their characters depth and emotion. Tom Cruise’s performance as Maverick is better than his previous incarnation of the same character. Through his stellar acting, Cruise gives Maverick a lot more more depth and actually makes you care about him more than the last movie ever did. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that his character shows growth through the movie, which is another welcome improvement. Miles Teller also delivers a great performance as Rooster, whose scenes with Cruise are the best emotional moments I’ve seen in a movie theatre in a long time. Val Kilmer also delivers a stunning emotional cameo that just might make you shed a tear or two.
This movie has the best aerial sequences I’ve ever seen on the big screen. I mean it: this movie, on a technical level, is revolutionary. Whether you’re looking at a shot from within the cockpit of a fighter plane or are experiencing some of the best choreographed aerial battle sequences you’ll probably ever see, this movie’s aerial scenes are out of this world good and are clearly the biggest aspect that contributed to its huge critical and financial success.
Top Gun: Maverick is an amazing movie that improves on the original in every way and is also just a great, moving experience.