{"id":38603,"date":"2023-01-22T19:06:47","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T00:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=38603"},"modified":"2023-01-22T19:20:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T00:20:01","slug":"top-gun-maverick-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/22\/top-gun-maverick-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Gun: Maverick (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Much like the original, \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d is a big jingoistic cartoon. But it\u2019s a fun jingoistic cartoon. I say that as someone that didn\u2019t like the original \u201cTop Gun<\/a>\u201d so suffice to say I was hesitant going right in to it. After so many years left in film limbo, I was stunned it was so well received, as legacy sequels most of the time fall flat. While \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d isn\u2019t exactly a masterpiece, I could think of worse times to spend with an action movie; it\u2019s definitely one of the better legacy sequels<\/a> I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

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After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. Training a detachment of graduates for a special assignment, Maverick must confront the ghosts of his past and his deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who choose to fly it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d for all its faults (that piano scene was so cheesy) is a bang up action movie that does little to tread new water from the original. It is the same it was, right where we left it back in 1986, and Maverick is every bit the same as he was when we left him. Maverick is a man perpetually stuck in the past, not going anywhere, and the movie celebrates that. Hell everyone is asking him throughout the movie to move forward, and stop living in the past. But he\u2019s Maverick, so it\u2019s okay! \u201cHey, sometimes change can be a bad thing,\u201d says the movie. Joseph Kosinski seems to know exactly what made the original \u201cTop Gun\u201d tick and he attacks the same narrative beats.<\/p>\n

He even stages a sandy sports competition with sweaty men. Kosinski channels a lot of the tone and temperament behind \u201cTop Gun\u201d for better and for worse, with so much of the movie being about Tom Cruise\u2019s Maverick. While the movie does pass the baton on to a slew of new youngins, Maverick is the hero of the film who is as untouchable and squeaky clean as Ethan Hunt. Cruise gets a lot of credit for his stunt work as he stages some great aerial scenes. And I loved the brand new cast, including Glenn Powell, and Miles Teller as \u201cGoose\u2019s\u201d now grown up son \u201cRooster.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a lot of subplots that don\u2019t really go anywhere, which is sad considering how much they\u2019re built up and developed. Did Rooster and Maverick ever reconcile their differences? Did Maverick and Penny\u2019s stale romance ever turn in to anything serious? Will Maverick go somewhere farther or stay behind in the TOPGUN program even in to his old age? \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d nonetheless is a raucous and fun action diversion with some slick editing, top notch direction and genuinely engaging action aplenty. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d put it in my top ten of 2022, but I wouldn\u2019t balk at re-watching it, either.
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