Flying an F-18, in short, ceases
to look like a neat alternative
to beach volleyball.
The knock-on effect of
Mach 10 flying scenes is
revelatory — everything plays
better. The jokes are sharper,
the emotional beats cheesy
but potent. We also get some
beach football, played
shirtless, of course, so we“Don’t give me that look,” can admire Cruise’s trunk;
Penny ( Jennifer Connelly)
says. “It’s the only one I got,”
replies Pete Mitchell (Tom
Cruise), flashing his toothy
grin in Joseph Kosinski’s Top
Gun: Maverick, a sequel to
Tony Scott’s hit of 1986. You
remember Pete Mitchell, the
cocky navy pilot with such a
reputation for being a
maverick they actually called
him Maverick. Thank God he
wasn’t called Mouse. Or Eric.
When we first see Pete in
the new film he’s gunning a
hypersonic jet to Mach 10,
against the advice of his
superiors, before ditching it
somewhere in the Mojave
Desert and walking,
blackened by fire, into a diner.
“Where am I?” “Earth,” an
awestruck boy replies.
What job did they pull
off by the end of it? Er, they
graduated from school. Top
Gun was the world’s shiniest
graduation video.
The new movie gives
Maverick something to do.
Disgraced for his Mach 10
antics, he becomes a teacher
for the next group of young
turks — including Hangman
(Glen Powell) and Rooster
(Miles Teller), the son of
Goose (Anthony Edwards),
who died, after ejecting,
in the original Top Gun — to
whip them into shape for
a mission to liquidate a
uranium-enriching facility in
Iran. “Don’t think,” he tells
them. “Just do.”
Cruise has always had all
the qualities of a golden age
movie star except relaxation,
going after each role like a
Chinese gymnast approaching
the bars. He won an
honorary Palme d’Or
at Cannes this year,
just for being Tom
Cruise, but much as
we may smile, that
is an achievement.
To survive in the
franchise era, hehas had to become his
own producer and stunt
co-ordinator, turning his body
into its own special effect
and his stardom into its own
franchise, just like Chaplin’s.
Top Gun: Maverick is the
ultimate expression of that
creative dominion. Yes, Cruise
is photographed gorgeously
— on his motorcycle, on the
beach, in silhouette at the
violet hour — but the film
seems to flow as much from
his role as producer and
his work on the Mission:
Impossible franchise as it
does from Top Gun.
The actors took flight
training so they could pilot
their jets, and by placing the
audience right there in the
cockpit as heaven and earth
swap places with one twist
of the control stick, Top Gun:
Maverick turns the empty
boast of Scott’s movie into
a series of immersive,
gyroscopically astonishing
aerial sequences that flatten
you against the back of your
seat as the pilots struggle not
to pass out from the huge
g-force sitting “like an
elephant” on their chest.Top Gun: Maverick
Joseph Kosinski, 12A, 131min
HHHH
TOM
SHONE
It’s a steal from The
Right Stuff, as the brief Ed
Harris cameo gracefully
acknowledges, but the
sequence is beautifully shot,
with Cruise’s jet skimming
like a stone across Earth’s
atmosphere at dawn, and
serves to announce that
the new movie stands head
and shoulders above the
original.
Admittedly, that isn’t
hard. A bright, tinny piece
of Eighties bling, Top Gun
is one of those fondly
remembered movies that
plays better after the fact
than it did at the time.
Featuring lots of shots of
Cruise in white underpants,
and running on a full tank of
locker-room braggadocio,
it ran dangerously low,
strangely, on action. The hot
air gave off its own haze.
“You’re here ’cause you’re
the top 1 per cent,”
Tom Skerritt told
Cruise. “You’re the
elite, the best of the
best. We’re gonna
make you better
because your job is
damned important.”FILM
NEW RELEASES
Elizabeth: A Portrait
in Part(s)
In cinemas
12A, 89min HHHIf the Queen were given a
lifetime achievement award,
the montage before her
acceptance might look a
bit like this (the final film
by Roger Michell). The
fast-moving array of archive
images, grouped in themed
sections, may not be a great
feat of cinema, but it’s droll,
perceptive, and affectionate
without being obsequious.A vintage summer block
The old dog still has it. Tom Cruise’s movie stands head and shoulders above the flashy
THE
CRITICS
14 29 May 2022