“Top Gun 2” Is the Tom Cruise Midlife Crisis Movie We Deserve

[Cow Poke]

Tell me it isn't SO!!!!

(And they won't even need to use that FaceApp to make him look old)

[Sparko]

I think he is a robot.

[NorrinRadd]

Maybe this will bring Sterling Archer out of his years-long coma.

Danger Zone!

[Adrift]

Somehow I missed the original Top Gun when it was out. In the Air Force I got called Maverick or Iceman a bit cause I wore aviators on duty all the time. A few years ago I finally sat down and watched it. Really wanted to see why it's been so hyped over the years, and (unpopular view)...I wasn't a fan. Here's a short review I wrote on it to some of my friends on Facebook,

The acting is pretty decent, and it's neat to see an all star cast right before they blew up. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tim Robbins, and Meg Ryan all became household names after this film. Others like Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, and James Tolkan were highly recognizable regulars in this period. Tom Cruise acts more like a real human being in this film than I've seen him in a long long time. Its just the simple mannerisms and levity that makes him seem less like the brainwashed robot he seems in his later films (and I'm a fan of his later films). Even his distracting unibrow makes him seem a bit more human. I was also really impressed by the camera shots of the flight crews, and how they filmed the fighters. That could not have been easy to do in the mid-80s. The DTS-HD audio track on the bluray is unbelievable with a decent 5.1/7.1 speaker setup. Jets sound like they're flying right over your head, and the musical score is extremely lush, filling all the speakers.

The bad. Pretty much everything else for me. The ridiculous playing-hard-to-get then lightning-fast romance. The impromptu public singing anytime anyone is in a bar. The shirtless hunk-guy scenes. The not-so-clever one-liners that sound like they came from a bunch of boneheaded frat boys (actually that part rings true based on my military experience). The boring inspirational speeches. Also, why is everyone always so sweaty all the time? Didn't they have central air in the 80s?

The film really does feel like what it is...a Tony Scott directed, Jerry Bruckheimer produced big box office schlockfest. It reminded me a lot of other melodramatic romantic action films like Titanic, and especially that other cringe-inducing Bruckheimer film, Pearl Harbor. I think its the military theme, and Bruckheimer's playing up that sort of all-American cheesiness. I liked Tony Scott's films well enough (R.I.P.), but he was no Ridley. Then again, he was mercifully no Michael Bay either.

At any rate, the trailer for this sequel looks a lot better. Hoping it is.

[Cow Poke]

I'll wait til it comes out on VHS.

[Cow Poke]

At any rate, the trailer for this sequel looks a lot better. Hoping it is.

Kinda wondering what Cruise will be flying. In the trailer, at the end, he's wearing a fully pressurized suit like a U-2 pilot would wear. There's nothing in the Navy's inventory that would require such a suit.

[Catholicity]

Kinda wondering what Cruise will be flying. In the trailer, at the end, he's wearing a fully pressurized suit like a U-2 pilot would wear. There's nothing in the Navy's inventory that would require such a suit.

Maybe they are sending him up in a test craft that launches into space? Meh....

[Sparko]

Somehow I missed the original Top Gun when it was out. In the Air Force I got called Maverick or Iceman a bit cause I wore aviators on duty all the time. A few years ago I finally sat down and watched it. Really wanted to see why it's been so hyped over the years, and (unpopular view)...I wasn't a fan. Here's a short review I wrote on it to some of my friends on Facebook,

The acting is pretty decent, and it's neat to see an all star cast right before they blew up. Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tim Robbins, and Meg Ryan all became household names after this film. Others like Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, and James Tolkan were highly recognizable regulars in this period. Tom Cruise acts more like a real human being in this film than I've seen him in a long long time. Its just the simple mannerisms and levity that makes him seem less like the brainwashed robot he seems in his later films (and I'm a fan of his later films). Even his distracting unibrow makes him seem a bit more human. I was also really impressed by the camera shots of the flight crews, and how they filmed the fighters. That could not have been easy to do in the mid-80s. The DTS-HD audio track on the bluray is unbelievable with a decent 5.1/7.1 speaker setup. Jets sound like they're flying right over your head, and the musical score is extremely lush, filling all the speakers.

The bad. Pretty much everything else for me. The ridiculous playing-hard-to-get then lightning-fast romance. The impromptu public singing anytime anyone is in a bar. The shirtless hunk-guy scenes. The not-so-clever one-liners that sound like they came from a bunch of boneheaded frat boys (actually that part rings true based on my military experience). The boring inspirational speeches. Also, why is everyone always so sweaty all the time? Didn't they have central air in the 80s?

The film really does feel like what it is...a Tony Scott directed, Jerry Bruckheimer produced big box office schlockfest. It reminded me a lot of other melodramatic romantic action films like Titanic, and especially that other cringe-inducing Bruckheimer film, Pearl Harbor. I think its the military theme, and Bruckheimer's playing up that sort of all-American cheesiness. I liked Tony Scott's films well enough (R.I.P.), but he was no Ridley. Then again, he was mercifully no Michael Bay either.

At any rate, the trailer for this sequel looks a lot better. Hoping it is.

You have to realize that all of the tropes weren't really that cliche back when the film first came out. A lot of films copied from this one and made them tropes. It looks pretty corny to me today too, but I thought it was great when it first came out.

[Bill the Cat]

[Adrift]

You have to realize that all of the tropes weren't really that cliche back when the film first came out. A lot of films copied from this one and made them tropes. It looks pretty corny to me today too, but I thought it was great when it first came out.

Yeah, that might be it. I don't know. I mean, I watched a lot of movies in the 80s, and none of those others felt as corny. Maybe I would have given it a pass back then, but I know 10 years later when movies like Bad Boys, and The Rock came out, I thought they were completely cheeseball and over the top stupid. Granted, I really liked Beverly Hills Cops I and II when they came out, and they're also Bruckheimer productions, so...eh, who knows. I haven't revisited them since the 80s, and maybe they don't stand up to the test of time as well as I remember though.

[Sparko]

Yeah, that might be it. I don't know. I mean, I watched a lot of movies in the 80s, and none of those others felt as corny. Maybe I would have given it a pass back then, but I know 10 years later when movies like Bad Boys, and The Rock came out, I thought they were completely cheeseball and over the top stupid. Granted, I really liked Beverly Hills Cops I and II when they came out, and they're also Bruckheimer productions, so...eh, who knows. I haven't revisited them since the 80s, and maybe they don't stand up to the test of time as well as I remember though.

Well none of them including Top Gun were meant to be intellectual films, just feel-good flicks. And Top Gun was a chick flick disguised as an action flick.

[rogue06]

You have to realize that all of the tropes weren't really that cliche back when the film first came out. A lot of films copied from this one and made them tropes. It looks pretty corny to me today too, but I thought it was great when it first came out.

It's like watching a Marx Brothers movie and seeing all these jokes that were old back when you were a kid. You should understand that these old jokes were new when the movie introduced them.

[Adrift]

Well none of them including Top Gun were meant to be intellectual films, just feel-good flicks. And Top Gun was a chick flick disguised as an action flick.

Yeah, I realize that. The idea that popcorn movies get a pass for being stupid is unfortunately the counter-argument I often hear from people who defend films like Independence Day and Transformers, but there are plenty of great pop-corn movies that are also smart. It's not a prerequisite of mindless popcorn movies to be dumb, so for instance Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, 3 of 4 Mad Max movies, Die Hard, Romancing the Stone, Lethal Weapon, Alien/s, Terminator, etc.. You've got a point about it being a chick flick disguised as an action flick though.

I recently watched The Right Stuff for the first time as well, and while I liked it a whole lot better than Top Gun, and loved how many major future stars were in it, it also had a bit of that schmaltzy dialogue and over the top/over produced sheen to it. So, yeah, you may have a point about the decade, and I'm just looking back on the films I like with Rose tinted glasses.

[Sparko]

It's like watching a Marx Brothers movie and seeing all these jokes that were old back when you were a kid. You should understand that these old jokes were new when the movie introduced them.

Mossy invented the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke. But it started out as "why did the Archaeopteryx cross the clearing?"

[Adrift]

It's like watching a Marx Brothers movie and seeing all these jokes that were old back when you were a kid. You should understand that these old jokes were new when the movie introduced them.

As a major movie buff, I'd like to think I'm past that. I routinely attempt to look at films from the perspective of the audience of the period. Sometimes that easier said than not. I LOVE the Marx Brothers, and think their comedy is timeless. The Three Stooges is a whole lot harder for me to relate to. Perhaps it's because I lived through the 70s and 80s that it's harder for me to give 80s films a pass.

Off topic, but I'm currently 215 films away from completing the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Top Gun and The Right Stuff were on that list, which is why I finally caught up with them.