The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-29)

SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E17

MOVIES

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Carrie Fisher played General Leia Organa in 2015’s “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens” — but was greeted with insults.

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

From left, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford during

Comic-Con in 2015. Ford’s recurring characters include Han Solo,

Indiana Jones and Rick Deckard. A new Indy movie slated for 2023

will mark 42 years since his first appearance in the role.

BY TY BURR

T

om Cruise has hung off

the Burj Khalifa sky-

scraper in Dubai and

dangled from the wing

of a plane thousands of

feet above the earth. He has rid-

den a motorcycle off a cliff and

held his breath underwater for six

and a half minutes. He has even

survived starring in “Cocktail”

(1988) and jumping on Oprah’s

couch (2005). But with the theat-

rical release of “Top Gun: Maver-

ick,” Cruise accomplishes a feat

that could be record-breaking.

He’s portraying a character —

hotshot fighter pilot Pete “Maver-

ick” Mitchell — that he first

brought to the screen 36 years

ago, perhaps the longest delay for

a return appearance in Holly-

wood movie history.

Double plays (and more) are

hardly unheard of, especially in a

modern Hollywood addicted to

franchise properties and charac-

ters. More people know Robert

Downey Jr. from nine movies —

nine! — as Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron

Man, than from anything else he

has done in his career. But

Cruise’s feat is unusual for a num-

ber of reasons. The original “Top

Gun” (1986) was a massive hit and

a pop-culture touchstone (and a

pretty terrible movie, but never

mind), but it was always a one-

and-done experience. When Mav-

erick flew off into the sunset with

Kelly McGillis’s Charlie at the end,

everyone got up and went home.

Yet here’s “Top Gun: Maverick,”

arriving nearly four decades after

the original. To be fair, the sequel,

which sees the hero put in charge

of a cadre of young pilots assigned

a dangerous mission against a

conveniently anonymous enemy,

began production four years ago

and was originally scheduled for a

July 2019 premiere. Production

delays and the arrival of the coro-

navirus pushed back the release

date no less than five times; even

Cruise is helpless against the

massed forces of delta and omi-

cron. Ironically, the delay has only

heightened expectations, and a

project that seemed like a

punchline when it was an-

nounced in 2010 has bowled over

preview audiences and early crit-

ics in blockbuster-starved 2022.

The delays also gave Cruise the

apparent record by lengthening

the time between original and

sequel. There have been several

instances of an actor returning

late in life to a character they

established earlier, and in almost

every case the phenomenon aris-

es from the combination of a star

whose career longevity has

achieved legendary (or at least

near-legendary) proportions and

a property that audiences might

want to pay to see again. Is the

motive always mercenary? I can

think of only three examples

where the urge for the swallows to

return to Capistrano is predicated

on genuine creative curiosity or at

least random serendipity.

The class act in this category is

Paul Newman chalking his pool

cue again as “Fast Eddie” Felson

in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of

Money” (1986), a quarter-century

after “The Hustler” (1961). New-

man’s Oscar win was especially

sweet, given that he’d been nomi-

nated for best actor six times

before — including for “The Hus-

tler” and “Hud” and “Cool Hand

Luke” and “The Verdict” — with-

out taking the prize.

Money may have been the de-

ciding factor in Marlon Brando

taking on the role of Mafia don

Carmine Sabatini in “The Fresh-

man” (1990) 18 years after Vito

Corleone in “The Godfather”

(1972), but the movie itself, a

wonderfully flaky comedy, hardly

feels like a cash grab. Does this

even count as a return appear-

ance, because Brando’s character

isn’t Vito Corleone but (suppos-

edly) the man who inspired him?

Feel free to argue, but “The Fresh-

man” wouldn’t exist without “The

Godfather,” and that’s that. (Coin-

cidentally, 1990 also saw Brando’s

one-time co-star Al Pacino return

to his “Godfather” role in the “The

Godfather Part III,” a movie that

only proved lightning doesn’t

strike thrice.)

Were audiences really clamor-

ing for Keanu Reeves and Alex

Winter in “Bill & Ted Face the

Music” (2020) three decades after

“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”

(1989) charmed teenage stoners

everywhere? Not really, which is

one reason the movie’s so funny.

Usually when actors deign to re-

turn to a classic role, they arrive

with star wattage weathered but

undimmed by time; the chiseled

Cruise of “Top Gun: Maverick”

makes the flyboy of the first film

look like he’s still working off his

baby fat. Reeves and Winter just

look... older, and the film keeps

booting them down the line into

various futures to worsening ef-

fect. It’s all oddly cheering, as if

you or I had been called upon to

reprise our high school play at the

30th reunion.

Otherwise, these overdue re-

turns are a form of what we now

call fan service, in which a nostal-

gic blockbuster enterprise is dust-

ed off two or three decades later

with the original stars bringing

gravitas to the project — or at

least audiences wanting to touch

a known talisman from their pop

culture past. Sylvester Stallone

returned to “Rambo” (2008) 20

years after “Rambo III” (1988)

and “Rocky Balboa” (2006) 21

years after “Rocky IV” (1985).

Leonard Nimoy re-upped as

Spock for the 2009 “Star Trek”

reboot 20 years after the last Trek

movie with the original cast. Sean

Connery cried uncle and agreed

to play James Bond one more time

in the aptly titled “Never Say

Never Again” (1983), 12 years after

“Diamonds Are Forever” (1971).

Have you noticed anything

missing here? Like, maybe, ac-

tresses? Aside from Linda Hamil-

ton reprising her role as Sarah

Connor in “Terminator: Dark

Fate” (2019), 28 years after “Ter-

minator 2,” the delayed return

visit seems mostly a male phe-

nomenon, for reasons that don’t

reflect well on Hollywood or on

audiences. In the classic studio

era, Bette Davis played Queen

Elizabeth I twice in 16 years (“The

Private Lives of Elizabeth and

Essex” in 1939 and “The Virgin

Queen” in 1955), but only because

as far as anyone was concerned

she was Queen Elizabeth — regal,

peremptory, eternal. Otherwise,

it’s the depressing truth that male

movie stars are allowed to age in

popular culture but not their fe-

male counterparts.

If you doubt that, remember

the online insults from callow

fanboys that greeted the late Car-

rie Fisher’s General Leia Organa

in “Star Wars: Episode VII — The

Force Awakens” (2015). The ac-

tress responded valiantly, tweet-

ing “Please stop debating about

whether or not I aged well. Unfor-

tunately it hurts all three of my

feelings,” but why would anyone

want to submit themselves to

that? Kelly McGillis, Cruise’s co-

star in 1986, is 64 now and wasn’t

asked to be in “Top Gun: Maver-

ick,” and that’s fine by her. “I’m

old, and I’m fat, and I look age-ap-

propriate for what my age is,”

McGillis cheerfully told report-

ers. (Jennifer Connelly, 51, plays

the love interest in the new mov-

ie.)

That said, the undisputed king

of returning movie warriors has

to be Harrison Ford, by dint of his

starring in the two franchises that

started the ball rolling in the first

place. “Star Wars: Episode VII —

The Force Awakens” (2015) came

out 32 years after Ford’s last ap-

pearance as Han Solo, in “Return

of the Jedi” (1983), while “Indiana

Jones and the Kingdom of the

Crystal Skull” (2008) appeared 19

years after “Indiana Jones and the

Last Crusade” (1989). And let’s

not forget the 35 years between

“Blade Runner” (1982) and “Blade

Runner 2049” (2017).

If you’re counting from the

character’s debut, Ford’s last ma-

jor appearance in a Star Wars film

came out 38 years after the first,

which gives him the crown. And

the star still isn’t done. There’s a

new Indy movie, already shot but

as yet untitled, in the can for

release in June 2023. It will mark

42 years since Ford first appeared

as Indiana Jones.

Take that, Tom Cruise.

Ty Burr is the author of the movie

recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s

Watch List at

tyburrswatchlist.substack.com.

Tom Cruise’s rare feat: Reviving Maverick, 36 years later

Tom Cruise plays Pete

“Maverick” Mitchell in

“Top Gun: Maverick,”

bringing back his

character from 1986.

“Please stop

debating about

whether or not I

aged well.

Unfortunately it

hurts all three of

my feelings.”

Carrie Fisher, in response

to c omments about her

appearance in 2015’s Star

Wars movie