Top Gun: Maverick

After over 2 years of delays, Top Gun: Maverick finally flew into theaters on Memorial Day weekend. After over 30 years since graduating from Top Gun, Maverick finds himself called back to teach the best of the top gun graduates how to survive an impossible mission. During this experience, he must learn how to connect with the students as well as cope with the emergence of mistakes from his past.

This movie is truly something special. It was able to take what was good about the first film, build on it and take it in a great direction. The film does a great job of calling back to the first film while still balancing the callbacks enough that the story doesn't just feel like a rehash of the first film. Every time the movie starts to do something similar to the original film, something will change and surprise the audience. It is also just really fun to see Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer return to their roles. It is just shocking how much Tom Cruise can do at almost 60 years old. The story itself is pretty straightforward. Right away. you know what the mission is and what the team is working towards. There also isn't much room for the story to slow down, allowing it to move at a nice brisk pace. The movie also does a really good job of building on Maverick as a character. After 30 years, he still has flaws and is still hurting from his mistakes. Because of this, the movie can build on that and can show what the natural place his character would be in. It can take his flaws in a new direction as well as bring back past mistakes and show how they can still be impacting such a long time later. There is also a good deal of humor in the movie, with several moments that caused the theater to laugh out loud. Finally, the final action sequence with the actual mission is really well done. It is exciting, handles the arcs of characters very well, and also does a great job of using practical effects instead of relying on CGI.

The only real issues I had with the film were that a few of the characters weren't as developed as I felt they should have been. Specifically, with Rooster, I felt there could have been a more natural transition to his relationship with Maverick. I also felt that the Penny-Maverick relationship rang a little hallow for me. I just felt that her character didn't add a ton to the story or Maverick's arc.

Overall, Top Gun: Maverick is a great follow-up to the original film that builds on the characters and takes them in new directions but still pays respect to the original movie.

Grade: A Score: 8.5/10 Recommendation: Go see it