Top Gun: Maverick—the 2022 sequel to the 1986 original Top Gun film—is about love.
Not the love between Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Penny (Jennifer Connolly) who runs the bar where US elite pilots congregate and boast of machismo.
Not the love between Maverick and Iceman, rivals in the original for the Top Gun award, friends now. Iceman is dying with throat cancer—the actor, Val Kilmer had that affliction. Indeed, it’s Admiral Iceman who suggests Maverick come back as teacher to the Top Gun programme because there’s a mission pending; you’ve guessed it—a mission impossible.
Not the love the US military has for cinema, for without its fighter planes, bases, aircraft carriers and full-on cooperation, the Top Guns films wouldn’t have been made. However in return, the original film was verified to serve as a recruiting agency for the military; young men signed up in droves at US Army information stalls in cinema foyers—recruitment across the country jumping by 500% that year.
No, the love is the love Tom Cruise has for filmmaking.
That love is ubiquitous; Tom Cruise has learned every aspect of filmmaking. Tom Cruise doesn’t rely on stuntmen to fly helicopters or military aircraft, Tom trains and becomes a helicopter fighter, a fighter pilot. Previously, Tom didn’t ask a stuntman to hang by his fingernails on the outside of a moving plane; Tom hung onto the door knob of the moving plane. Tom didn’t ask a stuntman to jump between tall buildings in Paris, Tom jumped and broke his ankle.
Such love.
Tom said he needs to do his own stunts for himself, yes, for the thrill, but also to give authenticity to the storytelling. Tom’s mission is to present not just an entertainment extravaganza but an authentic one as well. Tom likened making a Top Gun sequel to a bullet hitting a bullet, an indication of the precision involved, for under Tom’s agency, there’s very little CGI (computer generator imagery) here. It’s real stunts: it feels real, breathless, edgy, visceral…dangerous, it’s 10G for our sake.
It’s hard to resist being overawed by the ‘real flight’ aeronautics and nail-biting sky dances, bludgeoned by the sugar-frosted glow of Tom’s mercilessly engaging facial muscles. Tom makes aging questionable.
The emotional heartbeat comes, not so much from Penny or the dying Iceman, but from Rooster, Goose’s son. In the original, Goose was Maverick’s best buddy and flying companion, but Maverick’s F-14 got too close to the Iceman’s F-14 jet-wash and Maverick’s plane went into an unrecoverable spin, Maverick and Goose ejected, but Goose’s head hit the jettisoned aircraft canopy—Goose was cooked!
Maverick has unresolved issues over that, as has Rooster who accuses Maverick of blocking his flight-path—metaphorically.
‘Trust your instincts; don’t think, just do; you think up there, you’re dead, believe me,’ says Maverick to Rooster.
‘My dad believed in you,’ Rooster retorts, ‘I’m not going to make the same mistake.’
‘If I send Rooster on this mission,” Maverick later emotes, ‘he might not come back; if I don’t send him, he’ll never forgive me. Either way I could lose him forever.’ Tough call. ‘You have to let go,’ Iceman types to him. Yeah, send him only if he’s good enough.
Top Gun: Maverick, I saw in the lush upgraded IMO Screen 1 cinema in Mullingar. It is a cinematic experience. It is Tom Cruise and Tom rarely flies at cruise control, because for Maverick it’s about the need for speed, and for Tom, the need for film.
Tom Cruise loves film.
