A snarky review of Top Gun: Maverick
So, Top Gun then…
I had no intention of going to see this effort, because I consider the original to be one of the worst films I have ever sat through, and a thoroughly contemptible piece of US military propaganda trash to boot.
But everyone said the sequel was great, so I assumed that the writers had maybe found a way to do something interesting and/or subversive with it…
Well, not for the first time, everyone was wrong.
However, much as I would like to simply dismiss it all as being mindless pish like the first one, it was actually considerably better, and somewhat tolerable as a well-executed dumb popcorn movie. It still annoyed me though.
For one thing, it had more than its fair share of cringey Hollywood cliche moments (e.g. shitty “character establishing” banter; hard-assed superior officers straight outta central casting; contrived expositional scenes; and people pointedly NOT LOOKING at things which they would definitely look at in reality, because it apparently seems cooler on camera if they don’t etc.) These contributions from the Big Book Of Mainstream Movie Bullshit could generally be seen coming over the horizon towards the viewer at Mach 10 (ed: does this bit actually make any sense? — sod it, who cares).
SPOILERS:
The “impossible mission” itself is basically a rip-off of the trench run against the Death Star, but with a literal twist involving some acrobatics around a mountain or two prior to “hitting the exhaust port”. There’s some predictable stuff about tactics here — do we go fast and low and dangerous as Maverick suggests, or high and slow and stupid like The Brass want? Guess which view wins out!
Oh, and Maverick is only supposed to be the teacher this time round but… well, some events transpire, and he finds himself having to actually take part in person. Imagine my total lack of surprise! Obviously, Tom thinks that he is really flying the jets too, because he is a crazy person and no-one feels able to tell him that he was actually sitting in the back with a real pilot doing the work up front. The complete lack <cough> of “special visual effects” helps to seal the deal there (look out for them all in the credits!)
The mission is, as I say, “all but impossible”.. and you just know that they might not all make it back in one piece. But this presents a problem for the current zeitgeist: they can’t just kill the anonymous black fella like back in the day, nor can they dismember the lone female pilot (there is one, but ONLY one, in a shocking failure of full demographic representation.. which obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with men actually being better fighter pilots, which of course they are not. LOL).
Maybe they can just eliminate the “obvious dick” guy.. but that’s too predictable, and we really want him to have a redemption moment. So, I suppose we’ll be forced to off the meek and inoffensive “radar” guy.. but that would be sad, because he is nice and harmless. Oh, what to do, Mr. Writer(s)?
Fuck it… JUST DON’T KILL ANYONE. That’s right. This “impossible mission” seems to be your actual piece of cake in practice.
Sure, they could have done something interesting like having Maverick make a heroic sacrifice to save his young charges, especially Rooster, Son Of Goose (don’t think about it). And, yeah, why not go that route — Cruise surely doesn’t want to make another one of these damn things (does he?), and that would have added some “gravitas” to proceedings. So, in fact, they actually do this.. and then immediately undo it by having him eject to safety, followed by a bit of very silly finale action involving his return from behind enemy lines in one of the shitty older planes from the first film (I assume, I can’t be bothered to check).
No-one questions the purpose of The Mission, of course. It is taken as read that the Bad Men who rule The Unspecified Country Of Evil (it’s Iran) are doing some nasty nuculur stuff, and they must be stopped. The intelligence is beyond doubt (hey.. it’s not these guys’ jobs to doubt — or, as is made explicit more than once, to THINK), and there can certainly never be any legitimacy in trying to defend oneself against the peace loving might of the US Military Machine, which is only ever employed in Good Causes, and which certainly doesn’t have any nasty nuculur stuff of its own…
They even mention Maverick’s tours in Iraq (1 and 2) and in Afghanistan — where, presumably, when it came down to bombing innocent wedding parties or trucks full of “dangerous terrorists” who turn out to be schoolchildren, our heroic Mr. Maverick was “the best of the best of the best” at successfully murdering them from above. OK, I didn’t really expect anything else from a Top Gun movie.. and they wouldn’t have got access to the planes if they had dared to.
We are, however, allowed to consider the military higher-ups to be somewhat stuffy desk-jockeys, and a bit misguided in not understanding Tomerick’s rebellious genius, but ultimately they are Good People who develop a mutual grudging respect for him, and they most certainly are not EVIL FUCKING CUNTS.
One touching moment (the only one!) was the appearance of Val Kilmer, sensitively portraying an aging Ice Man who is now suffering from throat cancer. But this, of course, is only because Val Kilmer is suffering from throat cancer. When the single interesting bit of character work in your film comes by borrowing from the real life tragedy of your actors, I would claim that something has gone awry in the writing room.
Ice Man is the only one who dies.
GOODNIGHT. PEACE OUT.