The history of Hollywood is littered with sequels. Most are vastly inferior to their predecessors, mere attempts to cash in on an idea that didn’t need expanding upon in the first place. Then you have sequels that improve upon and expand the original idea, films like The Godfather: Part II and The Empire Strikes Back. These types of films are less common, but they’re out there. Then there’s Top Gun: Maverick, a film that is so vastly superior to its predecessor that one can’t help now but look back at the original Top Gun as being simply the primer for Maverick.
I’ve never made any secret of my adoration for Tom Cruise’s filmmaking. As truly our last great movie star, Cruise has elevated the art of moviemaking to a level once though to be unattainable, trading in the safer, more conventional computer generated imagery for real death-defying stunts that at times literally take the audience’s breath away. Whatever you think of his exploits away from the movie screen, Cruise’s dedication to the cinematic artwork is unrivaled, and as a result, the product that he puts out is always of the highest quality. Top Gun: Maverick is the pinnacle of a career that continues to produce new heights on a fairly regular basis.
Top Gun: Maverick is everything that you could want in a follow-up. There is nostalgia for the original film, but rather then simply bathe in that nostalgia and call it a day, Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski use it to inform this new story, which finds Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell essentially on the outs with the military. His latest mishap draws the ire of Ed Harris’ Rear Admiral Chester Cain, ultimately leading to his return to Top Gun to teach a group of pilots how to carry out a virtually impossible mission behind enemy lines.
The new recruits are a fun group and, while they each serve to fill the various cliches that one would expect to find from such a group of characters, the actors do a good job of rounding out these characters and getting you to care about them more than you might expect to from what is simply written on the page. Glenn Powell’s Hangman, Monica Barbaro’s Phoenix, and Miles Teller’s Rooster, who also provides much of the film’s emotional core opposite of Cruise, are absolute highlights here, bringing, in the case of Powell and Barbara, a sense of fun to the proceedings while Teller and Cruise really play up the tension between their two characters in a way that helps to connect this film to the original but also to drive the story forward in a way that doesn’t entirely rely on that nostalgia as well.
As fun as the characters are, however, what you’re really coming to Top Gun: Maverick for is the action. To say it is superb is to undersell it. Cruise and Kosinski deliver an experience here that is unrivaled. The action is intense and is among the most beautifully shot action that one will ever see in the cinema. A reliance on the use of real planes elevates this film to heights that other films that take the safe way out and use CGI could only ever dream of achieving.
I think it’s safe to say that Top Gun: Maverick will be an active participant in the upcoming awards season due to Lady Gaga’s instant classic “Hold My Hand”, but I would argue that it deserves much more than that. This is Best Picture material. While it’s not the arthouse fare or social commentary style film that usually dominate the nominations for the top prize at the Oscars, nominees for that top award should be films that elevate the cinematic art form. This is precisely what Top Gun: Maverick does. It elevates what we should expect out of a film of its kind. Cruise’s dedication to making it all look as easy, and as effortless, as possible is something that should be rewarded when the time comes for the nominations. The fact that Cruise is walking around without an Academy Award to his name is borderline criminal, and the level of expertise for the craft of moviemaking that is on display with this film should be, in some way, recognized by the Academy. Tom Cruise is our last great movie star, and Top Gun: Maverick is him planting his flag to claim that title, signaling to the rest of Hollywood that they need to up their game if they even want to merely compete with him. If you haven’t seen Top Gun: Maverick, see it now. This is what the cinema is all about.
