It’s been 36 years since the events of the first “Top Gun”. US Navy Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is a test pilot. Of course, he would have been given an Admiral long ago, like his old friend Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), after which he would have sat in a cozy office with a glass of whiskey in his hands, but Maverick, in his usual manner, does not obey orders, so he does not see him admiral rank. However, he does not need it, because he is an excellent pilot, the best of the best, sir, so Mitchell should fly until his retirement.
Maverick is testing the “Darkstar” hypersonic aircraft, which should reach a speed of Mach 10, but something is somehow not going well with this, and Rear Admiral Chester “Hammer” Kane (Ed Harris) decides to curtail this program, and direct the allocated funds to to finance the development of drones. Maverick, of course, violates the orders of his superiors to complete the tests, takes off, accelerates the plane to Mach 10, and then decides to find out what will happen to the plane when it reaches Mach 11, Mach 12, and then with all the stops.
As a result, the $100 million hypersonic aircraft did not survive its encounter with Mother Earth, and Maverick was punished by being sent to work as an instructor at Naval Air Station North Island near San Diego.
However, the task before Maverick is serious. This air base houses an elite group of recent Top Gun graduates – they are the best fighter pilots on the planet, sir, the best! And before them is the most difficult task: the best pilots must bomb an unauthorized uranium enrichment plant, located in a deep depression at the end of a canyon somewhere out there. The plant is guarded by Soviet S-125 anti-aircraft missile systems and Russian fifth-generation Su-57 fighters. GPS jammers also work in those parts.
What to do, what to do? Indeed, in conditions of GPS suppression, the F-35 Lightning II aircraft will be unsuitable for solving the problem! And then Maverick decides to attack the target with two pairs of F / A-18E / F “Super Hornet” carrier-based fighters. The plan of attack is extremely complex and almost impossible, but for Maverick it is important that the best of the best not only complete the task, but also return alive.
However, Maverick does not have mutual understanding with all young pilots. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller) is the son of Maverick’s late partner Nick “Gus” Bradshaw. Rooster knows that at one time Maverick tried to interfere with his military career, he also blames Maverick for the death of his father.
Will they be able to put aside problems in the relationship in order to fully concentrate on the combat mission – this issue is of great concern to the unauthorized uranium enrichment plant.
***
The first “Top Gun”, released in 1986, was very popular and showed an excellent TCC as much as 23.5. And this film, as well as “The Color of Money” released in the same year, gave a very noticeable impetus to the career of Tom Cruise.
“Top Gun” was a film very straightforward and terribly pretentious, which made it a tasty object for parodies, which was taken advantage of by director Jim Abrahams, who made an excellent film “Hot Shots!” .
Why the sequel was delayed for so long is unknown, but they clearly did not miscalculate with it: Top Gun: Maverick became the most successful film of 2022, grossing almost one and a half billion at the box office, showing an excellent TCC of 10 units. And the rating of the film is just crazy: everyone is delighted with it – both the audience and the critics.
The cat Bublik and I didn’t expect anything so special from this film (we watched the first one, but it didn’t cause any enthusiasm for us), but such a stir and such high ratings allowed us to hope that we would at least get a decent action movie.
They started watching and, as they say, did not understand. Because some completely wild pathos began to catch up from the very first frames. The flight was banned – but don’t care, we’ll fly. It is necessary to reach the speed of Mach 10, 9.9 are not suitable at all! Well, well, I reached Mach 10 – for myself and for that guy. Come on, let’s go even faster until the plane blows up. It’s blown, hurrah! Well, now for this, come on, my friend, go to educate talented youth.
Well, everything is clear with Maverick, of course, the best pilot, putting a hefty bolt on all orders – somehow he reminded me of a Russian irresistible. However, with the other best of the best – those same young pilots – everything was somehow not at all thankful to God. Absolutely cardboard characters, uttering pathetic phrases or terribly strained type as joking.
And all this was accompanied by such hackneyed clichés that I had a clear impression that I was not even watching a sequel to “Top Gun”, but a remake of “Hot Heads”, only made absolutely on serious cabbage soup – and this, of course, added a certain psychedelic quality to this picture .
I didn’t understand point-blank why it was done so primitively, poster-like, pretentiously and simply stupidly. Stamping on stamping sits and stamping drives. And it seemed to me that the creators of the film are completely “up to the lantern” what exactly happens there in between training or combat missions. All these pilots’ gatherings with, like, funny bellies shoving, a rather dull romantic line with Maverick and Penny Benjamin (however, there was one funny, albeit extremely predictable moment), bickering with superiors and such nonsense.
Tom Cruise in this film once again proved that he is a superstar. In the sense that films with him can bring in a lot of money. Cruz is in excellent physical shape, in his sixties (turned on July 3 this year) looks, God forbid, forty, he pilots airplanes and even pilots motorcycles himself. Also in this film, Cruise proved once again that he is, in general, a very mediocre actor. Especially when it’s not directed by dictatorial directors who can get what they want from the actors, but by directors who are completely dependent on Cruise.
And here, throughout the film, he demonstrated his most primitive acting tricks, which had long been imposed on his teeth: he moved his head from right to left – he half smiled, he moved his head from left to right – he half smiled. Well, there is nothing more in terms of acting in this film. And, no, a couple of times I squeezed out a mean male tear in both two eyes, I won’t lie.
The rest of the actors here had nothing to play at all – due to the sheer primitiveness of their characters. Therefore, it doesn’t even make sense to discuss the game of the same Miles Teller (quite a good actor, by the way) or Glen Powell, who here actually cosplayed the character of Cary Elwes from Hot Shots. Unless Jennifer Connelly had her Penny a little less flat than the rest of the characters, but there was very, very little of her. By the way, Jennifer is now 51 years old, and looks at 40 maximum, and this does not look like the miracles of plastic surgery, as in the case of Nicole Kidman or Sandra Bullock, where, to be honest, it doesn’t smell like miracles, it smells only of obvious plasticity.
Yeah, well, Lewis Pullman also had an amusingly predictable role as Lieutenant Robert “Bob” Floyd, but he (his character) also cosplayed Jim “Flush” Plaffenbach (played by Jon Cryer, who went on to rock with Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half man”) from “Hot Heads”.
So, you ask, why then such ratings and such enthusiasm? From the fact that it is purely spectacular, the film is really made very, very effectively. Modern aircraft, aerobatics, incredible (at the same time extremely unreliable, but we will not find fault with this) stunts, impressive angles – this really makes an excellent impression. And if for you, as well as for the creators of the film, all this plot line connecting spectacular episodes is purely applied in nature, and you simply do not pay attention to it, then you can feel the picture.
Fly? They fly. Do they fly fast? Faster nowhere. The best of the best, sir? Well, simply the best! Was the unauthorized plant sanctioned by a valiant blow? Even as sanctioned! Well, that’s all, why bother?
We don’t quibble. We didn’t even say a word about the senselessness of the operation itself, with which they rushed through the entire film: there are a lot of videos on the Web where specialists analyze it all in detail. But here it just makes no sense to find fault – this is a cinematic entertaining action movie, and not a drama about pilots, so let them fly as they want and on what they want and gouge the enemy enrichment as they want and with what they want.
However, almost everything that goes through the plot connection between the planes is very stupid, and it all really bothered us a lot. Now, excuse me, not the eighties. I understand that they wanted to make the film sort of like the eighties, but with modern visual and computer capabilities. But even in the eighties it was not as flat and primitive as it turned out here.
This is our humble opinion. Sorry if anyone has not been offended.
PS Watched by the whole family. And everyone, young and old, unanimously scoffed at the stupidity of the plot. However, “whatever you want, this is a seed”!
Top Gun: Maverick / Top Gun: Maverick
Director: Joseph Kosinski Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Val Kilmer, Bashir Salahuddin, Charles Parnell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris
Budget: $140M, Worldwide gross: $1407M
Action, USA, 2022, 130 min.