Top Gun Maverick (Quick Review) 🇺🇸

[chuckman]

It was a great retro flick. Loved it. Best movie of the year? Eh, I dunno. Worth my money? Every penny.

Nice to see a testosterone-laden in-your-face movie like this.

[Det-Sog]

FYI... Useless movie trivia.

The original Top Gun movie set the flying hooks into Tom Cruise so hard, he obtained his commercial pilots license and is rated to fly his own business jet. He also owns and flys the P-51 used in the movie. Like him or not, that's a pretty cool deal.

He was "prohibited" from touching the controls of those F-18s in the scenes for Maverick, but I think it's safe to say that he got a little stick time. No one will ever tell... Well, maybe not until some people retire from the Navy.

[john armond]

That's where I saw it too. Was not gonna pay extra to view that one, but was pleasantly surprised.

Saw the original in the theater. Had to see this one there too. Just rewatched it for free on Amazon.

[chuckman]

FYI... Useless movie trivia.

The original Top Gun movie set the flying hooks into Tom Cruise so hard, he obtained his commercial pilots license and is rated to fly his own business jet. He also owns and flys the P-51 used in the movie. Like him or not, that's a pretty cool deal.

He was "prohibited" from touching the controls of those F-18s in the scenes for Maverick, but I think it's safe to say that he got a little stick time. No one will ever tell... Well, maybe not until some people retire from the Navy.

I have a friend whose dad was a F-14 RIO and Topgun (one word) instructor, did some of the work with the actors for the original. He said all the actors were great to work with but Cruise would ask for extra time, extra books and reference material, etc. He said Cruise would call at 2 am to ask questions, he'd say "Mr. Cruise, can this wait until we meet at 8?", and Cruise would reply "no, I really need to know now" lol.

[AKDoug]

I was really ambivalent about the whole thing, but my good friend in DC said it was a good movie and he's not often wrong. I enjoyed it on my flight home from there back in October 22. I'm a cheap ass, and hate movie theatres, so I haven't been to a theatre in 15 years. This was one that I should have seen in the theatre.

[fedupflyer]

Should have been called Iron Eagle 4.

[SteyrAUG]

You may have missed the intent, but as a follow up the original, it was spot on. I think it did so well because it hit all the nostalgia buttons, and was old school 80s style action fun. No damn politics, no woke BS, etc, etc, just escapism. Truth is, many favorite 80s classics where not great movies and don't age well if you watch them now. Top Gun was not a great movie, but it was peak 80s fun. I think this movie recreated it perfectly. As a stand alone film? No, not great.

So I can still watch Top Gun as a stand alone film, which is why I didn't need this remake. I'm glad they didn't "Disney" it to death, but they really didn't do anything beyond almost make the exact same film. I was hoping for more.

[SteyrAUG]

[QUOTE=WillBrink;3097459]In my world view, Yeager makes Chuck Norris look like a pu$$y.



Kittinger did it without a plane.

[Buncheong]

I liked it. I can see the Death Star comparisons, yeah. But I think what it did well was develop the Pete Mitchell character and his relationships, past and present. The flying footage was pretty good, too.

[crosseyedshooter]

This movie brought me back to the 80s and all the feels with it. If you saw the original when it came out and remember how that felt; they were able to bottle up those feelings and open them all up again nearly forty years later. That is an amazing feat and everyone involved in the project should be commended for that. It was something we all needed in 2022.

As to the critics of the movie, you have to separate the tongue-in-cheek plot elements (obvious nod to Star Wars and Iron Eagle films from the eighties) from the fantastic job they did filming practical effects, real jets, amazing camera work showing aerial maneuvers, showcasing F-35 in the intro, maneuverability of fifth gen fighters, etc. They didn't get the sound of the cannons right, but nobody's perfect! In an age of CGI, they had all the actors up in real F-18s filming their scenes. There will never be another movie with this level of access to actual military jets.

Some other small things that I appreciated: the Hind helicopter really brought me back to my childhood watching Rambo. The dialogue between Rooster and Maverick had lines from the first movie between Goose and Maverick when they were up against Viper and Jester. It gave me chills and brought new meaning to the line, "Talk to me Goose."

As someone has mentioned, the real plot of the movie is about Pete Mitchell; growth from someone who left his wingman into someone who stayed faithful to his friend and realized the importance of family and sacrifice for others.

This Youtube channel has a series of great breakdowns by F-18 pilots that weren't involved with the movie. Obviously, there are spoilers!