God help us all!
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Written by: Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr., Peter Craig, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Val Kilmer
Swift shot: I can tell you that when the original Top Gun came out in 1986, it blew me away! It was the second full album I went out and bought with my own money. All my friends and I wanted to be Maverick, and now it’s 36 years later, and while a lot has changed in our lives, Maverick has remained the same. But the ghosts of his mistakes come back to confront him in a way that even he can’t see coming.
Nobody would ever believe that Maverick would be happy flying a desk, as it’s been said of both the character and honestly, Tom Cruise, “You’re not going to be happy unless you’re going Mach 2 with your hair on fire.” So, naturally he starts off the movie as a daredevil test pilot, trying to prove to some Pentagon dickhead (Ed Harris) that human pilots are still valuable in combat.
Just like the original, the opening sequence puts you on the edge of your seat! But unlike the original, which I found out was basically a romance after I forced my twelve year old son to watch it a few years ago, there’s adrenaline coursing through the aerial arteries the entire movie, with a few small exceptions that feature Jennifer Connelly.
And while she is fun to look at, that’s not “the movie we came to see.” We want to see Pete Mitchell leading a group of cocky F18-Hornet pilots on a daring mission to take out an enemy Hell bent on terrorizing the world through nuclear extortion. And yea, we get that . . . and some incredible fan service fun that I dare you not to love!
But the movie I really came to see focuses on one character in particular . . . callsign Rooster (Teller) who I have always wondered about, since we saw him as a little kid dealing with the loss of his larger-than-life father, Goose (Anthony Edwards). I mean, if you don’t know who Goose is, are you even an American, for fuck’s sake?
Through the cruel machinations of fate, and maybe with a little help from an old “friend,” Mav has to lead Rooster into harm’s way. Torn by his choices, Maverick can either ground him, if he feels he isn’t ready for the mission, or let him go on the mission – almost certainly a mission he won’t come back from. What would you do? I mean, this is Goose’s kid we are talking about!
If you have ever played “Wing Commander” you know how full of themselves combat pilots can be, and with this new batch of warriors, they didn’t veer far off course from that trope. And the callsigns and personalities of each reflect a little about who they are. You have Phoenix, Fanboy, Hangman, Payback, Halo, Omaha, Harvard, Yale, and Bob, played by Prince Lonestar’s kid!
[Swift aside: I only ever met one actual Tomcat pilot, in NATO, and he was the most humble guy I ever knew, affable and accommodating. He helped set up the Fisher House Foundation too, and I highly recommend you supporting them]
Speaking of full of themselves, Jon Hamm played the biggest prick of them all, Admiral ‘Cyclone,’ who has had it out for Maverick since he heard that he wasn’t permanently grounded following the events causing Goose’s death.
I mean, since we never put a face to the real enemy, the “rogue nation” that needs a talking to, I guess the writers felt they needed to have some fresh antagonists for Maverick to deal with.
In the past, Iceman (Val Kilmer) played that part of pain in the ass to Mav, but now, as audiences will no doubt understand, he’s had to take a back seat to the action. Without getting too sentimental, while we may not have loved Iceman, we all love Val Kilmer. And Iceman (and Doc Holiday) are his legacies too.
So, that’s all the setup you need for the movie. There’s a daring mission, and Maverick is in charge of selecting who gets to fly it, and nobody is expected to come back alive.
All I can say is that I felt like a kid again, escaping the realities of our harsh world for a brief moment to enjoy some thrilling dogfights and some of the best aerial combat sequences ever shot. And as Tom Cruise introduced the movie, he said how proud he was to make it for us, and that they used real F18s. It’s a love letter for Generation X, and to be honest, maybe a little better than the original.
