‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Is Shockingly Good

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD:

It’s safe to say that I was sold roughly twenty minutes in, when Tom Cruise, aka Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, gazes at a bespectacled Bradley Bradshaw “Rooster” (Miles Teller)—the grown son of his deceased friend “Goose”—through the window of a bar while he plays the piano like a ragtimer and belts “Great Balls of Fire.” The scene pays homage to its predecessor, accompanied by everyone’s favorite ancestral agent of sap: the montage. Lest audiences had somehow forgotten, not so long ago, that a baby-faced Maverick was singing the same song in the same bar alongside his fallen comrade. Now, it’s the next generation’s turn to tickle the keys. Perhaps it was the homemade gin-and-tonic I snuck into the theater, but for a fleeting moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: Could this be the sequel to save American cinema?

For those who have yet to see any iteration of Top Gun, audiences first meet Cruise’s ultra-cocky Maverick at the Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School in 1986. It’s an elite institution—or so we’re told—and competition among the students to be the best fighter pilot is fierce. One of those students is, most notably, a very chiseled Val Kilmer as “Iceman.” It wouldn’t be a blockbuster if there wasn’t a romantic subplot, and you simply cannot get more 80s than Maverick making out with his instructor (played by Kelly McGillis) to the tune of “Take My Breath Away.” Then there’s the montage of Maverick (markedly, in jeans), Goose, and their peers engaging in a cut-throat volleyball match on the beach, set to Kenny Loggins’ “Playing with the Boys,” that’s practically queer canon. Of course, a finale that includes a tragic death doesn’t hurt either.

Maverick picks right up where the first leaves off. We learn our protagonist has become more virile with age (I don’t know what Cruise sacrificed to the Church of Scientology, but he has never looked better) and has been working as a test pilot for the U.S. Navy. But it doesn’t take long before he’s summoned back to his old stomping grounds to teach a class of top aviators ahead of a life-and-death mission.

Naturally, one of those pilots is Bradshaw, along with a handful of others who also happen to be objectively hot and very adept at playing with their joysticks. Unlike the vast majority of sequels, this one deftly borrows the best bits from the first film and makes them anew, like say a certain battle royale on a beach, because after all, as Kenny Loggins once wrote: “One of life’s simple joys / is playing with the boys.” If the piano scene impelled me to sit up a little straighter, the latter made me cross my legs. As if Teller wasn’t already a criminally underrated actor (see Whiplash, The Spectacular Now), his barely perceptible but aggressively sexual wiggle whilst wearing jorts should earn him a Presidential Medal of Freedom, as it will inevitably be responsible for the sexual liberation of innumerable individuals for years to come. Yes, much of Twitter came to the consensus that this sequel could’ve been gayer. Of course, I agree. Every terse exchange between Cruise and Teller probably should’ve culminated in a kiss or two, but I get it: These aircrafts aren’t yet programmed for Valhalla.

As often as I felt motivated to relocate to the nearest naval base in an attempt to meet someone who even slightly resembles any one of these fictional pilots, I was also genuinely moved. As the film nears its conclusion, Kilmer and Cruise share a scene that—to my horror—actually drew tears. The former is dying and delivers a long overdue, deeply heartfelt message to his former rival: It’s time to let go—of the past, of regret, and of fear, too. By the time the mission the film has been mounting toward comes to pass, audiences will brace for the worst, like I did. And yet, it never comes. Everyone apart from Kilmer lives to see another day, while Maverick receives the redemption he so deserves. Everyone gets a well-earned happy ending—but especially Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly). Not only is she Cruise’s love interest, but she also owns a bar, sails, whips a vintage Porsche coup, and somehow makes even a cable knit sweater look very come-hither.

Sure, the aerial action sequences are cool, but it’s the story, a star-studded cast, and that soundtrack (the Lady Gaga power ballad, alone) that makes Maverick the stuff movies should be. Even as America decays from the inside a little more each day, this piece of patriotism porn did make me feel kind of proud—if only that we live in a country that just proved it can still produce a good sequel every now and again, despite the fact that it can’t pass legislation to materially improve the lives of anyone.