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Tom Cruise returns, 36 years later, to the role that made him a star. Top Gun: Maverick bests the original film as drama and entertainment, putting characters with universal appeal in thrilling, high stakes situations. The film opens with Maverick (Cruise) being called back to ‘Top Gun’, the naval training academy at which he distinguished himself in the 1986 film. He is summoned to train a squadron of new, young pilots to pull off a highly dangerous mission — to destroy an unauthorized uranium enrichment plant located beneath a steep cliff at the end of a narrow canyon. As if the mission weren’t dangerous enough, there’s an additional dramatic hitch: one of the students is ‘Rooster’ (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s wingman ‘Goose’, who died in a training accident during the first film. So Maverick’s goal isn’t just to pull off the mission, but to make sure all the students come home alive — a step further than the military cares to consider.
A film like Top Gun: Maverick could easily indulge in a combination of formula and nostalgia to elicit easy approval from viewers. But while the film is indeed formulaic and nostalgic, it’s also more. Maverick has truly matured as a character here, taking on the role of a father figure and protector. The students resent their trainer as students often do, but when Maverick is removed from their charge late in the training, they come to appreciate how hard he was on them — because the new trainer clearly doesn’t care if they live or die. Rooster holds a grudge against Maverick for most of the movie, because Maverick held him back during basic training — costing him four years worth of career progress. Rooster comes to realize Maverick was just making good on a promise to his late mother — not to let him risk his life the way Goose did. The two reconcile over the course of the third act, when they’ve crash landed in enemy territory together.
Maverick is haunted by the past. His most emotional scene is one with the late Val Kilmer in his final screen appearance. Kilmer returns as ‘Ice Man’, Maverick’s old classmate, now the admiral in charge of Top Gun — and his character is in rapidly declining health (much as Kilmer was during the filming). He hears Maverick confess his darkest fears — that he might have been remotely responsible for Goose’s death, and that he could be responsible for Rooster’s as well.
Supporting player Jennifer Connelly also functions as a sounding board for the main character. Her role is that of a once and future flame. Her part is conceptually a thankless one. But somehow, perhaps through good dialogue and Connelly’s Oscar-caliber acting chops, she comes off as much more than an ornamental girlfriend. She holds her own with Maverick in a relationship that feels storied and sincere. It’s a far more convincing one than Maverick’s relationship with Kelly McGillis’s character in the first film.
Top Gun: Maverick is remarkable for its real-life aerial photography, especially in it’s thrilling third act when Maverick and Goose have to save themselves by hijacking an ancient jet to flee their enemies. But the action and technology wouldn’t mean squat if the characters weren’t worth caring about or investing in. It’s absolutely formulaic, and it absolutely cashes in on easy nostalgia. But Top Gun: Maverick executes itself in a remarkably sincere and disarming way.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy). With Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris.
Academy Award: Best Sound
Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Song (“Take My Hand”), Visual Effects