REVIEW #184 Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Maverick returns for the highly anticipated sequel 36 years after the first film. After breaking the rules yet again, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell is ordered to return to Top Gun to teach the country’s elite graduates for a special, highly complicated operation. Forced to confront his past, it’s a fight against time to ensure his students make it out of the missions alive. 

Sequels tend to get a bad reputation in Hollywood, with very few films matching their predecessors, never mind surpassing them in quality. However Top Gun Maverick carries all of the charm from the first film, adds in some extraordinary character development and blends that with an incredible soundtrack and amazing action sequences. I had so much fun watching this sequel, the entire cinema did! We was all laughing and gasping together throughout the duration of the film. In my opinion it manages to improve upon every aspect of the original and that’s some task in itself. The only thing we didn’t have was a shock as big as Goose’s death but nonetheless there are plenty of emotional moments that play on the heartstrings of the audience. Tom Cruise once again made a point of training all of the cast like actual pilots and insisted on using actual footage from fighter jets for his film and just like the first, it produced the most amazing cinematography. What I particularly enjoyed about the storyline was it had a lot more purpose to it, these pilots were training for a very specific mission and that aspect worked really well. Joseph Kosinski avoided using too many cameos from the original, he gave Val Kilmer a touching return to acting since his cancer treatment, tying in his condition to the film and it was a rather moving scene actually. Now was there anything negative that stands out for me? I can only think of one, when Maverick and Penny first get a bit frisky after plenty of back and forth, they decided to show it using a really cringey fade montage which just didn’t fit the camerawork for the rest of the film. It looked like shoddy editing from a teen romance film, but like I said it didn’t match the rest of the film because the editing was almost perfect everywhere else. I loved the soundtrack, the iconic Top Gun theme tune is present throughout, with different variations used depending on the mood of the scenes and there’s just something about it that gets the audience pumped! Even Lady Gaga’s new song at the end just worked incredibly well. It really feels like Maverick as a character has now come full circle, a humbled man who has finally found some peace and come to terms with Goose’s death by going through such an experience with his son. If it’s a final goodbye to the character and the franchise then I couldn’t think of a better way to do it, this is a really special sequel that anyone can enjoy. Please get out to the cinema to experience it because that surround sound and big screen just elevates the film!

Overall 9/10

Thanks for reading!

Callan