Top Gun: Maverick – Film Review

After more than 30 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.

When a sequel to Tony Scott‘s 1986 film Top Gun was announced, there was a collective sigh and eye-roll from audiences who were swearing up and down that Hollywood was going to tarnish a beloved 80s classic, and honestly, who can blame them? Hollywood does indeed have a tendency to take a wildly loved film or franchise, make the laziest reboot or sequel imaginable, and release it solely because they know it will make a lot of money.

Thankfully though, fans of Top Gun can collectively exhale because not only is Maverick one of the greatest films of the year so far, it’s without a doubt one of the best action films in several years. From the moment it begins to the moment it ends, Top Gun: Maverick is a relentless exercise in tension, emotion, incredible thrills, while also telling a hugely interesting story.

By the time the film begins, we know that Tom Cruise‘s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell has been through a lot since the events of the first film. He still has the need for speed within him, but he is haunted by the death of Goose from the first film. He can’t help but feel as if it was his fault that the man is dead and he carries the guilt around with him each and every day.

He wants to train a group of young fighter pilots to accomplish an outrageously dangerous mission, the odds of which seem impossible, even to Maverick. But deep down inside, he knows that they can do it if he trains them prop|erly. Now, we have a movie, and a damn good one at that too.

Top Gun: Maverick is a multi-layered movie in every way possible. It deals with grief and trauma in some genuinely emotionally gripping ways, to the point where you’ll find it hard not to get teary-eyed at several key moments. It’s so incredibly rare to see an action film of this calibre actually take the time to explore these themes.

With different screenwriters and a different director, it’s highly possible that this film would have just been nothing but crazy flight sequences, but thankfully, in this movie, we are treated to some amazing moments with Cruise’s character on the ground which was such a delight to see.

We also learn quite early on that he has a thing with a woman named Penny (Jennifer Connelly), who also delivers one heck of a performance. Together, Cruise and Connelly have wonderful chemistry. The two characters have a detailed past that we learn about, and the performances of both actors feels so believable.

You probably want to know how the flight sequences are – they’re breathtaking. Every single time we watch somebody in a cockpit, we’re holding our breath, not sure what the outcome will be. Maverick is a highly unpredictable movie where the stakes feel uncomfortably high at times.

There is never a scene where we are one-hundred-percent confident that our heroes are going to survive, and that’s terrifying. In real life, it’s the same way. As a captain, you simply have to trust that your pilots know what they are doing. They probably do, and things might be okay in the end, but there’s always going to be that feeling buried deep inside of you, asking you “What if?”.

Top Gun: Maverick is the kind of exhilaratingly epic film that simply doesn’t get made anymore. It’s an extreme exercise in thrills and tension that commands to be seen on the biggest screen possible.