It’s perhaps the longest one has had to wait for a sequel. More than 35 years after Top Gun soared on to screens and did all and more to “take our breath away”, Tom Cruise — who returns as the protagonist Pete “Maverick” Mitchell more than three decades later — has ensured that Top Gun: Maverick is more immersive, more emotionally resonating and more spectacular than Top Gun. In other words, if the reviews so far are anything to go by, this is a rare sequel that’s superior to the original in every possible way. And after a long wait, made longer by the pandemic pause, Top Gun: Maverick is now in theatres.
POP-CULTURAL TOTEM TO WHOLESOME BLOCKBUSTER
Die-hard Top Gun fans, and that includes many of us growing up in the ’80s, may look back at the Tony Scott-directed testosterone-powered 1986 film as one of the biggest pop-cultural totems of recent times, but the truth is that Top Gun was more style than substance. Its stylishly mounted aerial sequences, handsome men strutting around in uniform — Cruise apart, there were Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards — and some of the most magnificent birds in the sky, along with a banger of a soundtrack, ensured that it grabbed eyeballs and became a box-office blockbuster.
Not only did the film spike the sales of bikes and RayBan aviators, it also gave movie buffs lines to quote through the ages, the most popular among them being, of course, “I feel the need, the need for speed”.
Top Gun: Maverick has all this, and more. Taking place more than 30 years after the events of Top Gun, Maverick has Cruise’s Maverick now working as a test pilot and pulling out all the stops to dodge the advancement in rank that would force him to stop flying. However, he ends up back at the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics School — otherwise known as TOP GUN — where he has to confront his past, even as he is charged with training a new squadron of fighter pilots.
Val Kilmer returns as ‘Iceman’ in Top Gun: Maverick
Besides Cruise, Val Kilmer returns to reprise his role of Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. According to reports, Cruise went out on a limb to ensure that Kilmer, despite the latter’s voice being maimed by his brave battle against throat cancer, was made a part of the new film. The rest of the cast is as eclectic and exciting as it gets, comprising the likes of Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman and Ed Harris. Helmed by Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick is dedicated to Tony Scott, who died tragically in 2012.
NOT A REMAKE OR A REINVENTION
The emotion that has gone into not only dedicating the film to Scott but also in the making of Top Gun: Maverick shows on screen. Production on the film may have started in 2018 but the sequel was an idea as far back as 2010, with Scott, who was slated to return to direct the second film, saying, “This world (of the sequel) fascinated me, because it’s so different from what it was originally. But I don’t want to do a remake. I don’t want to do a reinvention. I want to do a new movie.”
Cruise, whose legendary movie star status was, without a doubt, catalysed early by the stupendous success of Top Gun, has truly been the force behind the sequel. Cruise, who is just short of 60, designed a unique boot camp for the actors of Maverick, with three months of training, including underwater evacuation, aerial aviation and the preliminary training to build spatial awareness inside the aircraft and during flights. The actors also had to learn how to run the cameras because when they’re up in the jet they had to direct themselves essentially.
Tom Cruise in Top Gun
That the film is close to Cruise’s heart is pretty much evident. In an interview with Conan O’Brien in 2019, he described Top Gun: Maverick as “a love letter to aviation”. The attempt on Cruise’s part has been to make this one of his biggest, and it shows. Six IMAX-certified cameras were placed in the real F-18 cockpits of the planes used, making the final footage truly incredible. Maverick also includes nearly one hour of IMAX’s Expanded Aspect Ratio, which means one can see up to 26 per cent more picture in select sequences throughout the film. This is truly a film to be watched on the biggest screen possible.
Cruise himself told the audience at Comic-Con a few years ago, “Thirty four years, you guys have been very, very patient with me. I felt that it was my responsibility to finally really deliver for you... I really wanted to give you all the experience of what it’s like to be inside that aircraft.” Truly, the man has made this his mission possible.
BIG BANG THEORY
The early box-office reports and critics’ reviews only reflect that. Most reviews have dubbed Top Gun: Maverick as “the perfect summer blockbuster”. “Maverick is the perfect wingman to Top Gun and a more than worthy successor to a classic. It flies so high it soars”, reads a line from a review in the The Detroit News. “See it on the biggest screen possible. Then see it again,” says Times London. “A textbook example of how to make a sequel,” is the verdict from Associated Press, while San Francisco Chronicle sums it up best with, “If you haven’t been to the movies in a while, Top Gun: Maverick is a way to get back in. It’s pretty much what ‘going to the movies’ is all about”.
Top Gun: Maverick is what the trade is calling a ‘five-quad’ movie, or in other words, an aggressive overperforming title. Then there was a big splash at the Cannes Film Festival last week, where Cruise received a surprise Palme d’Or while French fighter jets streamed above the Palais premiere. Now that’s what we call undisputed movie star status. And Top Gun: Maverick will only add to that.