We never saw "Top Gun" all these years. So we decided to catch the original and then go see the new sequel in IMAX with an Air Force hot-shot on opening weekend. Call ME Maverick. We start with the new one.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK (B) - When I was a kid, Chicago Cubs announcer Jack Brickhouse would conclude an inning in which the Cubs gave up some runs but the other team missed a few opportunities to score even more: "Well, that sure could have been a whole lot worse." I braced for impact while watching the long-awaited sequel to "Top Gun," and I need not have -- it was a fun experience. (We saw it in IMAX.)
Tom Cruise's passable acting skills have not improved much since the '80s, but he is surrounded by a capable cast and a script that skirts by cliches in a clever enough way to keep things afloat. It is the classic tale of an old gunslinger (Cruise's Maverick) who will show a bunch of cocky upstarts that he has at least one more flight (and fight) left in him. And he must reconcile with Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's beloved former wingman Goose, who famously met his demise in the first film, in Maverick's arms. For no good reason, the filmmakers toss in a fairly wooden Jennifer Connelly as Cruise's love interest to form a 50-something Ken & Barbie play set.
Credit goes to Peter Craig, a hot-shot of a writer, who followed up 2010's "The Town" with major-league credits like "The Hunger Games," "Bad Boys for Life" and "The Batman." Craig takes a tired premise and manages to build tension, with a taut narrative that won't quit. Lines often get delivered with too much of a knowing wink -- especially every time Maverick is chastised for having "that look" on his face ("It's the only one I've got" is his snappy comeback). But the dialogue snaps when it needs to.
Meantime, director Joseph Kosinski's camera actually goes up in the planes with the cast for dazzling visual effects. Back on the ground, Maverick has returned as an instructor at the Top Gun school, which sets him up to clash with a stern admiral (admirably portrayed by Jon Hamm) and bond with his support team (Bashir Salahuddin is particularly effective) and a new generation of elite fliers that is more nuanced and interesting than in the original. A valedictory scene between Cruise and Val Kilmer (who lost his voice to cancer and must rely on computer assistance) -- Kilmer's Iceman is now the chief admiral over Top Gun -- is a truly touching (and somewhat meta) moment.
You will see the plot twists and ending coming from miles away on the horizon. (It helps our consciences that, while the mission is a supreme challenge, the target is not people but just a rogue nation's nuclear reactor.) But damn if it's difficult to dislike this All-American rah-rah romp. Mission accomplished
TOP GUN (1986) (C) - This is even more hokey and subtextual than I could have imagined. It is difficult to try to assess what I would have thought of this if I had seen it as a young adult 36 years ago, but seeing it now for the first time, all I can do is shake my head and marvel at the decade of the 1980s and the phenomenon that is Tom Cruise.
No one needs me to weigh in after all these years. This is a pretty stupid movie. Every character sweats profusely, even when they are not piloting a jet; didn't they have air-conditioning in the control rooms back then? It's interesting to track the homo-erotic theme throughout the film and think how ground-breaking that must have been back then. It's not just one beach volleyball game; the theme played out by these professionally coifed pretty boys is far from subtle and deeply woven throughout the film. And why were these 20-something hot shots memorizing and singing songs from the '50s and '60s all the time? Maybe because the filmmakers thought it would make for a cool soundtrack alongside Kenny Loggins? And who knew the final cheesy song (written by "Axel F" synthesizer noodler Harold Faltermeyer, from Giorgio Moroder's stable) was sung by Cheap Trick? Is that a career high for them or a career low?
Cruise has never been a very good actor. I wish I'd kept track of the number of times he clenched his jaw, which is his amateurish go-to move. Val Kilmer flails away in his first real role. Kelly McGillis has that longing look down pat, but not much else. And hey, there's that guy (Michael Ironside) whose head exploded in "Scanners"!
The plot is all cornball and cheese, straight from World War II propaganda films. At one point our American heroes blast some Russkies out of the sky, and what would have normally instigated World War III gets explained away with a throwaway line of dialogue toward the end.
Oh, well. "Top Gun" happened in 1986. Son of a gun.
BONUS TRACKS
Comedian Rich Hall reminds us that the plots of Tom Cruise films are pretty much all the same:
And our title track: You can see the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" episode about the Montgolfier brothers here.
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