{"id":15074,"date":"2014-08-04T17:30:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T17:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=15074"},"modified":"2015-05-17T17:33:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T17:33:47","slug":"top-gun-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/04\/top-gun-1986\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Gun (1986)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2012-08-19-top_gun-533x306\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that Tony Scott\u2019s \u201cTop Gun\u201d was not only a pop culture milestone, but very influential for its time. It\u2019s such a ridiculous and silly testosterone laced fantasy based around sexy women, war machines, and a military comprised almost exclusively of sweaty Caucasian young men. It\u2019s tough to take it as anything other than an absurd cartoon that\u2019s valuable for its laugh out loud camp value, and bold faced homoeroticism it embraces and yet ignores like the elephant in the room until the very end. You can argue that it\u2019s a cool movie, but is \u201cTop Gun\u201d a good movie? I\u2019d definitely say \u201cHell no,\u201d topped with \u201cAre you kidding me?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Going in to \u201cTop Gun\u201d you have to respect it for the interesting parts that make up the cheesy whole. The soundtrack is pretty fantastic with \u201cDanger Zone,\u201d and \u201cTake my Breath Away\u201d dominating much of the decade of the eighties, while Scott\u2019s directorial style is almost a template for future Michael Bay productions. The almost predominant red and orange tint that permeates throughout the film is distracting, but really helps induce this idea that the movie is one big jingoistic fantasy. \u201cTop Gun\u201d is set in the breakneck world of Navy Aviation where we meet Maverick. He\u2019s a reckless douche bag who breaks rules and risks lives, but he\u2019s Tom Cruise so it\u2019s okay to root for him. During an interception of enemy air ships, Maverick\u2019s wingman Cougar is emotionally shaken by a missile stand off.<\/p>\n

This prompts Maverick to bring Cougar back to base, despite the violation of rules and regulations instilled by his commanders. Cougar takes himself out of the crew from trauma, and Maverick is now sent to attend the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School (also known as \u201cTop Gun\u201d), with his new wingman Goose (Anthony Edwards) to be educated in new weaponry and regulations. While there, Maverick begins romancing a gorgeous woman named Charlotte who he discovers is one of the instructors of the school. And also begins posing as his intellectual rival in knowledge in warfare. Not to mention she finds Maverick\u2019s jump suit and pilot\u2019s glasses impossible to stay out of, for most of the film. To offset the inherent sexual tension between Maverick, Goose, and the film\u2019s resident antagonist Iceman (Val Kilmer), Scott and the writers work overtime on really forcing the sexual romance between Maverick and Charlotte.<\/p>\n

There are endless moments of sexual tension between the pair, including their memorable love scene. Much of it is so forced, as Cruise and Kelly McGillis have no real chemistry as potential lovers or a couple at all. But McGillis does bring the film full circle in its love letter to America depicting young Caucasian military men flying war weapons, and bedding sexy but intelligent blond women. All that\u2019s left is for Maverick to ride a motorcycle instead of a car to accentuate his rebelliousness. Oh wait, Scott includes that, too. \u201cTop Gun\u201d is such a goofy and convoluted ode to America that\u2019s never sure if it wants to be a male oriented military action film, or a romance between two people with vastly differing ideals in a military backdrop. In the end, it\u2019s an inadvertent comedy, and one I\u2019m shocked was ever taken even remotely seriously. At least Kenny Loggins\u2019 theme song is still pretty bad ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to believe that Tony Scott\u2019s \u201cTop Gun\u201d was not only a pop culture milestone, but very influential for its time. It\u2019s such a ridiculous and silly testosterone laced fantasy based around sexy women, war machines, and a military comprised almost exclusively of sweaty Caucasian young men. It\u2019s tough to take it as anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-packed-april","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15076,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15074\/revisions\/15076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}