top gun 1 movie review

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Common sense media reviewers.

Exciting Tom Cruise classic has some intense scenes.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Winning is the most important thing to these chara

Maverick is overconfident and cool, but he's got s

All Navy personnel and Top Gun students are men. T

A main character is killed during a traumatic plan

A graphic-for-its-time love scene shows characters

Several uses of "s--t," plus "son of a bitch," "go

Maverick drinks wine and then drives off on his mo

Parents need to know that Top Gun is a blockbuster 1980s action thriller starring Tom Cruise that's chock full of narrow escapes, chases, and battles. But there are also violent and upsetting scenes, particularly the death of a main character, which make it too intense for younger kids. There's also one…

Positive Messages

Winning is the most important thing to these characters, though they also prize loyalty, friendship, and duty. While sexism is noticeable, two strong women characters help keep some of the objectification in check. Relatable friendships between men. Even though students compete with each other, they support Maverick after a tragedy.

Positive Role Models

Maverick is overconfident and cool, but he's got some depth to him, too, and he grows/matures somewhat over the course of the story. Charlie is a smart, tough woman. Goose and Viper are supportive friends and mentors to Maverick. Iceman is a great pilot -- eventually winning the Top Gun trophy -- because he's careful and follows rules.

Diverse Representations

All Navy personnel and Top Gun students are men. Two pilots are Black but are mainly in the background of the story. Some sexist comments and jokes (calling women "targets" and placing bets around sleeping with them), but main character Charlie has a PhD in astrophysics and an important job at Top Gun, and Carole is treated with respect.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A main character is killed during a traumatic plane crash/malfunction (blood is shown on his face). A lot of fighter pilot skirmishes (some with missiles and enemy planes exploding) and characters in peril. Risky behavior like reckless driving and riding motorcycles without helmets.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A graphic-for-its-time love scene shows characters embracing intimately and tongue kissing in profile, but there's no nudity. A teacher sleeps with her adult student. Lots of shirtless men in locker rooms and an iconic beach volleyball scene. Innuendo/references ("I'm getting a hard on").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "s--t," plus "son of a bitch," "goddamn," "damn," "d--khead," "p---y," "hell," "a--hole," "ass," "laid," and "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Maverick drinks wine and then drives off on his motorcycle. Beer drinking and cigar/cigarette smoking by adults. Memorable scenes set in bars.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Top Gun is a blockbuster 1980s action thriller starring Tom Cruise that's chock full of narrow escapes, chases, and battles. But there are also violent and upsetting scenes, particularly the death of a main character, which make it too intense for younger kids. There's also one graphic-for-its-time sex scene (though no explicit nudity) and quite a few shirtless men in locker rooms and, in one iconic sequence, on a beach volleyball court. Winning is the most important thing to all the pilots, who try to intimidate one another with plenty of posturing and banter -- though when push comes to shove, loyalty and friendship have important roles to play, too. While sexism is noticeable and almost all characters are men, two strong women help keep some of the objectification in check. A sequel, Top Gun: Maverick , was released in 2022. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (32)
• Kids say (86)

Based on 32 parent reviews

My fav movie of all time

Good movie but poor language, what's the story.

TOP GUN centers around Maverick ( Tom Cruise ), a troubled, overconfident fighter pilot who's one of the United States' best. When another pilot loses his confidence during a standoff with an enemy plane, Maverick and his wingman, Goose ( Anthony Edwards ), get the chance of a lifetime: to attend the Top Gun Naval Flying School in Miramar, California. There, Maverick meets and tries to woo Charlie ( Kelly McGillis ); takes on his rival, Iceman ( Val Kilmer ), in the skies; and comes to terms with the mysterious fate of his father, a naval fighter pilot whose death details have been kept confidential. But can Maverick temper his loose-cannon ways to win the competition and cope with the death of someone close to him?

Is It Any Good?

Made at the peak of Cruise's career in the 1980s, Top Gun is still exciting to watch. For all of the serious drama in the film, it's also heavy on action and charisma. Adults of a certain age will remember how it spawned a fashion movement of aviator glasses and bomber jackets and what a huge star Cruise was. More than The Color of Money or the Mission: Impossible franchise, this well-directed, well-acted film is the one in which Cruise proved that he could play more than an arrogant jerk with a killer smile. Cruise imbues Maverick with so much warmth and depth that you can't help rooting for him.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether they agree with the idea that "There are no points for second place." Is winning all that matters? What would you risk to win?

Who do you think Top Gun is aimed at, audience wise? How do you think it might be different if it were remade today?

Do you think it was right for Charlie and Maverick to pursue a romantic relationship?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 16, 1986
• On DVD or streaming : May 19, 2020
• Cast : Kelly McGillis , Tom Cruise , Val Kilmer
• Director : Tony Scott
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Friendship
• Run time : 109 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : thematic intensity and mild sexuality and peril
• Last updated : April 10, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Romance , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• May 16, 1986
• Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell; Anthony Edwards as Lt. j.g. Nick 'Goose' Bradshaw; Kelly McGillis as Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood; Meg Ryan as Carol Bradshaw; Val Kilmer as Lt. Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky; Rick Rossovich as Lt. j.g. Ron 'Slider' Kerner; Tom Skerritt as Cmdr. Mike 'Viper' Metcalf; Michael Ironside as Lt. Cmdr. Rick 'Jester' Heatherly; John Stockwell as Lt. Bill 'Cougar' Cortell; Tim Robbins as Lt. Sam 'Merlin' Wells; Whip Hubley as Lt. Rick 'Hollywood' Neven; James Tolkan as Cmdr. Stinger

Home Release Date

• November 12, 1986

Distributor

• Paramount Pictures

Movie Review

“I feel the need … the need for speed.”

Yep. Speed is the name of the game in Top Gun , an adrenaline-fueled cinematic salute to all things fast—fast motorcycles, fast planes and fast women. In the middle of all that fastness is Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a hotshot pilot with a renegade tendency for doing everything on his own terms and treating rules like timid suggestions.

It’s a combination that earns his commanding officers’ ire … and respect. After Maverick shows up some Russian MiG-28s over the Indian Ocean, he’s rewarded with a spot at Top Gun, the Navy’s elite school for its fighter pilots at Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego.

Top Gun is a program designed to make the best of the best even better. Maverick arguably doesn’t need much boost in the skills department. And he knows it. But his lone-wolf attitude and refusal to submit to authority increasingly cause his peers (Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky at the top of the list) and his superiors (Cmdr. Mike “Viper” Metcalf and Lt. Cmdr. Rick “Jester” Heatherly) to wonder if he’s more of a liability than an ace asset.

Meanwhile, civilian aeronautics expert and Top Gun trainer Charlotte Blackwood, who goes by Charlie, seems immune to Maverick’s bad boy charm … until she learns that he’s the one who managed to snap a picture of himself flying another kind of bird in close, inverted proximity to a rare Russian MiG.

As their romance heats up, so does Maverick’s insistence on doing things his way. Then a training accident sends his F-14 through the jet wash of his wingman, and not even Maverick’s vaunted skills can save the plane, which hurtles out to sea in a dreaded flat spin. He ejects safely, but his radar intercept officer and best friend Lt. j.g. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw is killed.

Rattled to the core, Maverick finds himself facing a crisis of confidence about his calling as a fighter pilot. And when the pesky Russians come calling again, he’s forced to face his inner demons once and for all in a high-stakes, high-speed aerial showdown.

Positive Elements

The core moral lesson Maverick is forced to learn after Goose’s death is that he does not, in fact, get to play by a completely different set of rules than everyone else, no matter how naturally talented he may be. It’s a hard pill for Mav to swallow, but he is ultimately able to do so. That lesson might best be summed up in the phrase, “Never, ever leave your wingman.” Maverick has a tendency to do exactly that through much of the film. But in the end, when it counts most, he sticks with his wingman (his rival, Iceman) at great risk to himself in combat.

Indeed, we see that the contentious pilots have learned how to depend on each other in battle, overcoming their animosity. “You!” Iceman shouts at him afterwards. “You are still dangerous. You can be my wingman anytime.”

Goose is tolerant of Maverick’s rebellious streak almost to a fault. But in a serious moment after the duo is disciplined for one of Mav’s reckless decisions, Goose tries to help his friend see how much is at stake for him, namely providing for his young family (a responsibility Maverick doesn’t have). Maverick responds by telling his friend he won’t let him down, because “you’re the only family I’ve got.”

The script hints at why Maverick acts like such a renegade, but his backstory (involving his father dying in combat over Vietnam) is never deemed an excuse. Viper and Jester are both hard on Mav at times, but both root for him to overcome his weaknesses, as do moviegoers. Several key characters encourage him to persevere after Goose’s death. Charlie, for one, tells him, “To be the best of the best means you make mistakes, and then you go on.”

Spiritual Elements

Goose wears a cross. And his wife jokes that while Maverick is off chasing women on the weekends, Goose comes home early to be able to make it to church on Sundays.

Sexual Content

Goose’s frequent comments imply that Maverick is a ladies’ man who’s used to having casual sex with his easily awed conquests. When Mav spies Charlie in a bar, Goose dares his dashing bud to secure “carnal knowledge” of her on the premises. Initially, Maverick gets shot down. He then follows her into the restroom, where she jokingly asks if he expects to have sex with her on the floor.

Her resistance doesn’t last more than a few days, and the two soon consummate their relationship in a scene that includes intimate close-ups of their mouths and tongues groping and touching as they have sex. Maverick is shown beginning to remove Charlie’s shirt in that scene before the camera mostly zooms in on their faces. We also see bare backs and subtle sexual motions. Charlie is shown with a sheet covering her chest the next morning. One of her shirts makes it clear she’s not wearing a bra.

Goose’s wife tells him at a bar, “Hey, Goose, ya’ big stud, take me to bed or lose me forever.” Charlie repeats that line with Maverick’s name inserted a bit later.

Scenes in locker rooms show pilots in towels after showering. We see Mav wearing just his underwear (from the back). The camera goes to great lengths to ogle guys’ bare chests during a beach volleyball game. It pans across women at an officer’s club wearing outfits that reveal cleavage and leg. It’s a place Maverick and Goose dub “a target-rich environment.” The thrill of combat is said to give a pilot a “hard-on.” And there’s a bit more talk about the male anatomy in other contexts. We hear a couple of lines that snicker at gay attraction.

Violent Content

We see Goose forcibly eject (in slo-mo) into the canopy of his crippled F-14. After he and Maverick parachute into the ocean, Mav holds Goose’s battered and lifeless body.

An intense dogfight features the explosive destruction of one American F-14 (whose two pilots apparently parachute to safety) and four MiG-28s (whose pilots are apparently killed).

After an argument, both Mav (on his motorcycle) and Charlie (in her car) drive recklessly through traffic, with Charlie nearly causing an accident. Maverick angrily grabs the front of another pilot’s flight suit.

Crude or Profane Language

Between 30 and 35 s-words. Close to two dozen misuses of God’s name; more than half the time it’s paired with “d‑‑n.” Jesus’ name is abused 10 or so times. We hear a handful of crude references to the male anatomy (“d‑‑k,” “d‑‑khead”); somebody’s called a “p‑‑‑y.” “H‑‑-” pops up a dozen or more times. Other profanities include “p‑‑‑,” “b‑‑ch,” “a‑‑” and “a‑‑hole.” Maverick flashes an obscene finger gesture at a Russian pilot; it’s a story that gets (visually) retold a couple of times and becomes something of a legend as the film proceeds. Iceman flips the bird while in a Top Gun class.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Maverick, Goose and others are seen drinking shots, beer, wine and champagne at various bars, meals and events. On an aircraft carrier, Cmdr. Stinger chomps on cigars almost constantly. Several other characters smoke cigarettes.

Other Negative Elements

One example of the way Maverick repeatedly refuses to play by the Navy’s rules: He “buzzes the tower” twice, flying fast past air traffic control rooms just to create a ruckus. Viper flaunts military security clearance strictures by telling Maverick what actually happened with his dad.

Top Gun is an adrenaline-pumping ode to outsized masculinity that’s (mostly) channeled into the heroic confines of an F-14 cockpit. It’s assertively pro-America. It’s defiantly pro-military, robustly pro-friendship and diligently pro-teamwork. Maverick learns his big lesson in the end, deciding to play nicer with others and watch their backs when the aerial chips are down. Given the choice between hero and helper, he finally sees the wisdom in choosing helper … and becomes the hero for following through on it.

But as the film delivers its amped up (music video-feeling) and emotion-driven rallying cry, it refuses to question … much of anything. If drinking and carousing and cursing help fighter jocks get the job done, then so be it, it says. If the jets are in the sky, then just shoot ’em down, it says. If a guy needs classified top secret information about his downed dad in order for him to screw his head on straight, then by all means tell him everything.

Those aren’t four-G inverted content nose dives, but they do make for a rough flight.

A 3-D UPDATE: I vividly recall exactly what I did shortly after I saw Top Gun for the first time back in 1986. I was 16, and I’d just gotten my driver’s license. I walked out of the movie and proceeded to rocket down the double-nickel freeway at about 85 mph. The way I figured it, my dad’s brand-new ’86 Ford Thunderbird—complete with digital dashboard—was as close as I was ever going to get to an F-14.

Top Gun is just that kind of movie. The kind of movie that makes impressionable 16-year-old kids want to drive fast. And also the kind of movie that, by all accounts, has inspired scores of young men to sign up for military service, hungry to fly in more than just a Thunderbird.

Twenty-seven years later, I can still appreciate the visceral thrill that the now deceased director Tony Scott’s big-screen love letter to fighter pilots elicits in me. Tom Cruise suddenly seems awfully young here—practically Justin Bieber-esque—but his Maverick is still larger than life, and especially so on 3-D IMAX screens that absolutely dwarf the one I originally saw this movie on. That 21st-century (Feb. 2013) techno-touch ramps up Top Gun’ s cool-factor testosterone levels even higher than they were back then, if that’s possible. And better yet, seeing it with more mature eyes I can now appreciate some of the things that extend past the hype. The good lessons my pilot hero learns about teamwork and perseverance in the face of adversity, for example.

The digitally doctored print—blown up and pulled at and inflated with added dimension—does feel a tad grainy, though. And that almost serves as a metaphor for how I also saw with clearer, more discerning eyes the racy sex scene between Maverick and Charlie, and heard with keener ears the film’s nearly 100 profanities.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Metacritic reviews

• 80 Empire Adam Smith Empire Adam Smith Top Gun is not so much a movie in the conventional sense as an escalating series of masterfully crafted adverts: motorcycles, aircraft carriers, pectorals and planes all look as if they’ve been shot for a particularly luminous beer campaign.
• 80 Variety Variety Set in the world of naval fighter pilots, pic has strong visuals and pretty young people in stylish clothes and a non-stop soundtrack.
• 75 Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty Top Gun has always been more than just an action flick about a cocky young fighter pilot who feels the need for speed.
• 75 Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel No doubt about it: Top Gun is going to be the hit that "The Right Stuff" should have been. They are not in the same class of films, but this much must be said: The aerial sequences in Top Gun are as thrilling -- while remaining coherent -- as any ever put on film.
• 63 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert This is a movie that comes in two parts: It knows exactly what to do with special effects, but doesn't have a clue as to how two people in love might act and talk and think.
• 63 New York Daily News Kathleen Carroll New York Daily News Kathleen Carroll The flight sequences in “Top Gun” may arouse aerial buffs. Still, this movie approaches its subject in such juvenile, superficial way that it’s clear the producers were merely in a hurry to cash in on Hollywood’s new wave of Rambo-style patriotism.
• 50 The New York Times Walter Goodman The New York Times Walter Goodman The excitement is switched off on landing. Once Top Gun, which opens today at Loews Astor Plaza and other theaters, gets back to earth, the master of the skies is as clunky as a big land-bound bird.
• 50 TV Guide Magazine TV Guide Magazine What TOP GUN contributes to the genre is an increased emphasis on military hardware and an almost homoerotic attraction for male bodies, mostly sweaty ones.
• 40 Time Time Top Gun is about the training of the Navy's best fighter pilots and their blooding in cold war incidents, and the only thing Director Tony Scott has not brought up to date is the story. It is the one about the hotdog who has to be taught to be a team player. They were peddling that one before Writers Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. were born.
• 30 Chicago Reader Dave Kehr Chicago Reader Dave Kehr Every moment is hyped for maximum visual and visceral impact, but Scott doesn't display the slightest bit of interest (or belief) in the actual characters and situations.
• See all 15 reviews on Metacritic.com
• See all external reviews for Top Gun

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Review: Tom Cruise flies high — again — in the exhilarating ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

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“If you think, you’re dead.” That’s one of Tom Cruise’s more memorable lines from “Top Gun,” a cautionary reminder that when your engine flames out or an enemy pilot locks you in their sights, hesitation means death. Inadvertently, the line also suggests the best way to enjoy Tony Scott’s immortal 1986 blockbuster: Best not to think too long or hard about the dumb plot, the threadbare romance, the fetishization of U.S. military might or the de rigueur plausibility issues. The key is to succumb, like Cruise’s high-flying Maverick himself, to a world of unchecked instinct and pure sensation, to savor the movie’s symphony of screaming jets and booming Giorgio Moroder, not to mention all those lovingly photographed torsos and tighty-whities.

Jets still scream and muscles still gleam in the ridiculous and often ridiculously entertaining “Top Gun: Maverick,” though in several respects, the movie evinces — and rewards — an unusual investment of brainpower. I’d go further and say that it offers its own decisive reversal of Maverick’s dubious logic: It has plenty on its mind, and it’s gloriously alive.

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A lot of consideration and calculation have clearly gone into this long-aborning blockbuster sequel, insofar as Cruise (one of the producers) and his collaborators have taken such clear pains to maintain continuity with the events, if not the style, of the first film. That’s no small thing, more than 30 years after the fiery young Maverick lost Goose, made peace with Iceman and rode off into the annals of fictional U.S. Navy history. And rather than let bygones be bygones, the director Joseph Kosinski and a trio of screenwriters (Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Cruise’s favorite auteur-wingman, Christopher McQuarrie) have resurrected those threads of rivalry, tragedy and triumph and spun them into uncharted realms of male-weepie grandiosity.

Some of this continuity is a matter of basic story sense, rooted in a shrewd understanding of franchise mechanics and an equally savvy appeal to ’80s nostalgia. But it also has something to do with the 59-year-old Cruise’s close stewardship of his own superhuman image, a commitment that speaks to his talent as well as his monomania. And with the arguable exception of “Mission: Impossible’s” Ethan Hunt, few Cruise characters have felt as aligned with that monomania as Maverick. From the moment he entered the frame in ’86, sporting flippant aviator shades and riding a Kawasaki motorcycle, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell announced himself as a signature Cruise creation — a precision-tooled amalgam of underwear-dancing sex symbol (just three years after “Risky Business”) and the envelope-pushing, heights-scaling action star he would become.

These days, the need for speed still persists for both Cruise and Maverick, even if the latter does more flying than running. But for all the barriers he’s broken and all the miles he’s logged in his career as a Navy test pilot, Maverick occupies a state of self-willed professional stasis. Unwilling to be promoted into desk-job irrelevancy, he is a captain by rank and a rebel by nature. The opening sequence finds him playing Icarus with one of the Navy’s shiny new toys, thumbing his nose in the process at the first of the movie’s two glowering authoritarians. (They’re played by Ed Harris and Jon Hamm.) Old habits die hard, but so do the ghosts of the past, and Maverick, for all his reckless abandon in the cockpit, will soon find himself breaking his own rules by thinking more carefully, and tactically, than he’s ever had to do before.

Called back to the elite Navy training school where he flew planes, defied orders and irritated his peers with distinction, Maverick is charged with preparing the program’s best and brightest for a stealth attack on a far-flung uranium enrichment plant owned by some conveniently unidentified NATO-threatening entity. As impossible missions go, it makes the Death Star trench attack look like a grocery run — a tough assignment for Maverick’s 12 brilliant but still-untested pilots, played by actors including Lewis Pullman, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez and a terrific Glen Powell as a smug, know-it-all Iceman type. And then there’s the hotheaded Rooster (Miles Teller, sullen as only he can be), whose candidacy is complicated by the fact that his late father was Maverick’s wingman and best friend, Goose (the great Anthony Edwards, seen here in brief shards of footage from the first “Top Gun”). Talk about chickens coming home to roost.

Rooster’s background is a ludicrous contrivance. It’s also the perfect setup for the kind of rich, thorny cross-generational soap opera that — as much as its aspect-ratio-fluctuating flight sequences and its climactic surge of Lady Gaga — is this movie’s reason for being. Those planes may be powered by fuel, but “Top Gun: Maverick” runs on pure, unfiltered dad energy. Try not to smile whenever Cruise’s Maverick flashes a mischievous avuncular grin beneath his helmet and chases his young charges in F/A-18s all over the Mojave Desert, teaching them new moves while wasting no chance to reassert his own superiority. Back on the ground, Maverick and Rooster’s surrogate daddy-son tensions flare into the open, exacerbated by guilt, resentment and their recognition of their shared stubbornness.

The drama might have taken on an intriguingly Oedipal edge if the filmmakers had thought to bring back, say, Meg Ryan as Carole, Goose’s wife and Rooster’s mother. But here, with the exception of Monica Barbaro as one of Maverick’s most gifted proteges, women are few and far between, and even the more prominent ones get mostly perfunctory treatment. With no sign of Kelly McGillis as the Navy instructor who once took Maverick’s breath away, it falls to another flame, Penny (a lovely, underused Jennifer Connelly), to mix a few drinks, provide a flicker of romantic distraction and snuff out the first film’s lingering homoerotic vibes. Not that there are many such whiffs here, and more’s the pity: Kosinski, who previously directed Cruise in the shiny, empty science-fiction drama “Oblivion,” is a skilled craftsman with none of Scott’s horned-up filmmaking energy. (He does salute the original with an opening blast of “Danger Zone” and a rousing game of football in the surf, though the latter is more team-building than steam-building exercise.)

Scott’s admirers may miss that disreputable edge, the unrepentantly vulgar sensibility that made the original “Top Gun” a dreamy, voluptuous hoot. There’s some compensation in Kosinski’s fight and flight sequences, full of face-melting ascents, whiplash-inducing loop-de-loops and other airborne stunts that prove considerably more transporting and immersive than what the first “Top Gun” was able to accomplish. That’s only to be expected, given the more sophisticated hardware involved. Like any proper commercial for the military-industrial complex, “Top Gun: Maverick” teases the latest cutting-edge advances in aeronautics and defense technology, a field that has evolved roughly in step with an ever more digitally subsumed movie industry.

At the same time, thanks to Cruise and Kosinski’s unfashionable insistence on practical filmmaking and their refusal to lean too heavily on computer-generated visual effects, their sequel plays like a throwback in more than one sense. But the era that produced the first film has shifted, and “Top Gun: Maverick” is especially poignant in the ways, both subtle and overt, that it acknowledges the passage of time, the fading of youth and the shifting of its own status as a pop cultural phenomenon. The original was a risky, relatively low-budget underdog that somehow became a perfectly imperfect movie for its moment, soaring on the wings of its dreamy eroticism and recruitment-commercial aesthetics, a mega-hit soundtrack and an incandescent star. It ushered in a new era of decadence for its producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and for the many gung-ho American blockbusters they would keep cranking out.

“Top Gun: Maverick” is a longer, costlier and appreciably weightier affair, and its expanded emotional scope and heightened production values (including a score by the original film’s composer, Harold Faltermeyer) give it a classy, elegiac sheen; it’s like a hot summer diversion in prestige-dinosaur drag, or vice versa. As a rare big-budget Hollywood movie about men and women who fly without capes, it has a lot riding on it. Once set for a summer 2020 release but delayed almost two years by the pandemic, it arrives bearing the hopes and dreams of a tentatively resurgent industry that could use a non-Marvel theatrical hit. And as such, everything about its story — from the intergenerational conflict to the high stakes of Maverick’s mission to the rusted-out F-14s collecting dust at the periphery of the action — carries an unmistakable subtext. Is this movie one of the last gasps of a dying Hollywood empire? Or is its emotionally stirring, viscerally gripping and proudly old-fashioned storytelling the latest adrenaline shot that the industry so desperately needs?

It’s hard to consider any of this apart from Cruise, whose attention-grabbing actions during an earlier phase of the pandemic — shooting a video of himself going to see “Tenet” in a packed London theater , verbally lashing members of his “Mission: Impossible” crew for flouting COVID-19 protocols — suggest a man who’s placed the weight of an entire troubled industry on his own shoulders. His endless search for the perfect action vehicle has sometimes felt like a quest for some elusive fountain of Hollywood youth, and it’s led to gratifying highs ( “Edge of Tomorrow” ) and inexplicable lows ( “The Mummy” ). Like Maverick, to whom someone wise once said, “Son, your ego is writing checks that your body can’t cash,” Cruise just won’t quit, won’t give up, won’t listen to anyone who tells him no. As a sometime fan of Cruise’s egomania, at least when he’s dangling from a helicopter or literally running to catch a plane, I’m not really complaining.

And so there’s some irony and maybe even a hint of self-awareness in the fact that while Cruise owns just about every moment of this movie, another star winds up stealing it. As Iceman, Maverick’s old adversary turned wingman, mentor and ally, Val Kilmer haunts “Top Gun: Maverick” from its earliest moments but enters it surprisingly late, anchoring a perfectly timed, beautifully played scene that kicks the movie into emotional overdrive. Watching Ice as he greets and counsels Maverick, you may find yourself thinking about the actor playing him, about the recent toll on his health and the rickety trajectory of his own post-’80s and ’90s career, subjects that were illuminated by the recent documentary “Val.” In one fictional moment, he gives us something unmistakably, irreducibly real, partly by puncturing the fantasy of human invincibility that his co-star has never stopped trying to sell.

‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Rated: PG-13, for sequences of intense action, and some strong language Running time: 2 hours, 17 minutes Playing: Starts May 27 in general release

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In “Top Gun: Maverick,” the breathless, gravity and logic-defying “ Top Gun ” sequel that somehow makes all the sense in the world despite landing more than three decades after the late Tony Scott ’s original, an admiral refers to Tom Cruise ’s navy aviator Pete Mitchell—call sign “ Maverick ”—as “the fastest man alive.” It’s a chuckle-inducing scene that recalls one in “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” when Alec Baldwin ’s high-ranking Alan Hunley deems Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, “the living manifestation of destiny.” In neither of these instances are Cruise’s co-stars exclusively referring to his make-believe screen personas. They are also (or rather, primarily) talking about the ongoing legacy of Cruise the actor himself. 

Truth be told, our fearless and ever-handsome action hero earns both appraisals with a generous side of applause, being one of the precious remnants of bona-fide movie superstardoms of yore, a slowly dwindling they-don’t-make-'em-like-they-used-to notion of immortality these days. Indeed, Cruise’s consistent commitment to Hollywood showmanship—along with the insane levels of physical craft he unfailingly puts on the table by insisting to do his own stunts—I would argue, deserves the same level of high-brow respect usually reserved for the fully-method sorts such as Daniel Day-Lewis . Even if you somehow overlook the fact that Cruise is one of our most gifted and versatile dramatic and comedic actors with the likes of “ Born on the Fourth of July ,” “ Magnolia ,” “ Tropic Thunder ,” and “ Collateral ” under his belt, you will never forget why you show up to a Tom Cruise movie, thanks in large part to his aforesaid enduring dedication. How many other household names and faces can claim to guarantee “a singular movie event” these days and deliver each time, without exceptions?

In that regard, you will be right at home with “Top Gun: Maverick,” director Joseph Kosinski ’s witty adrenaline booster that allows its leading producer to be exactly what he is—a star—while upping the emotional and dramatic stakes of its predecessor with a healthy (but not overdone) dose of nostalgia. After a title card that explains what “Top Gun” is—the identical one that introduced us to the world of crème-de-la-crème Navy pilots in 1986—we find Maverick in a role on the fringes of the US Navy, working as an undaunted test pilot against the familiar backdrop of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone.” You won’t be surprised that soon enough, he gets called on a one-last-job type of mission as a teacher to a group of recent Top Gun graduates. Their assignment is just as obscure and politically cuckoo as it was in the first movie. There is an unnamed enemy—let’s called it Russia because it’s probably Russia—some targets that need to be destroyed, a flight plan that sounds nuts, and a scheme that will require all successful Top Gun recruits to fly at dangerously low altitudes. But can it be done?

It’s a long shot, if the details of the operation—explained to the aviator hopefuls in a rather “It can’t be done” style reminiscent of “ Mission: Impossible ”—are any indication. But you will be surprised that more appealing than the prospect of the bonkers mission here is the human drama that co-scribes Ehren Kruger , Eric Warren Singer , and Christopher McQuarrie spin from a story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks . For starters, the group of potential recruits include Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw ( Miles Teller , terrific), the son of the dearly departed “Goose,” whose accidental death still haunts Maverick as much as it does the rest of us. And if Rooster’s understandable distaste of him wasn’t enough (despite Maverick’s protective instincts towards him), there are skeptics of Maverick’s credentials— Jon Hamm ’s Cyclone, for instance, can’t understand why Maverick’s foe-turned-friend Iceman ( Val Kilmer , returning with a tearjerker of a part) insists on him as the teacher of the mission. Further complicating the matters is Maverick’s on-and-off romance with Penny Benjamin (a bewitching Jennifer Connelly ), a new character that was prominently name-checked in the original movie, as some will recall. What an entanglement through which one is tasked to defend their nation and celebrate a certain brand of American pride ...

In a different package, all the brouhaha jingoism and proud fist-shaking seen in “Top Gun: Maverick” could have been borderline insufferable. But fortunately Kosinski—whose underseen and underrated “Only The Brave” will hopefully find a second life now—seems to understand exactly what kind of movie he is asked to navigate. In his hands, the tone of “Maverick” strikes a fine balance between good-humored vanity and half-serious self-deprecation, complete with plenty of quotable zingers and emotional moments that catch one off-guard.

In some sense, what this movie takes most seriously are concepts like friendship, loyalty, romance, and okay, bromance. Everything else that surrounds those notions—like patriotic egotism—feels like playful winks and embellishments towards fashioning an old-school action movie. And because this mode is clearly shared by the entirety of the cast—from a memorable Ed Harris that begs for more screen time to the always great Glen Powell as the alluringly overconfident “ Hangman ,” Greg Tarzan Davis as “Coyote,” Jay Ellis as “ Payback ,” Danny Ramirez as “Fanboy,” Monica Barbaro as “ Phoenix ,” and Lewis Pullman as “Bob”—“Top Gun: Maverick” runs fully on its enthralling on-screen harmony at times. For evidence, look no further than the intense, fiery chemistry between Connelly and Cruise throughout—it’s genuinely sexy stuff—and (in a nostalgic nod to the original), a rather sensual beach football sequence, shot with crimson hues and suggestive shadows by Claudio Miranda . 

Still, the action sequences—all the low-altitude flights, airborne dogfights as well as Cruise on a motorcycle donned in his original Top Gun leather jacket—are likewise the breathtaking stars of “Maverick,” often accompanied by Harold Faltermeyer ’s celebratory original score (aided by cues from Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe ). Reportedly, all the flying scenes—a pair of which are pure hell-yes moments for Cruise—were shot in actual U.S. Navy F/A-18s, for which the cast had to be trained for during a mind-boggling process. The authentic work that went into every frame generously shows. As the jets cut through the atmosphere and brush their target soils in close-shave movements—all coherently edited by Eddie Hamilton —the sensation they generate feels miraculous and worthy of the biggest screen one can possibly find. Equally worthy of that big screen is the emotional strokes of “Maverick” that pack an unexpected punch. Sure, you might be prepared for a second sky-dance with “Maverick,” but perhaps not one that might require a tissue or two in its final stretch.

Available in theaters May 27th. 

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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Film credits.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action, and some strong language.

131 minutes

Tom Cruise as Captain Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell

Miles Teller as Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw

Jennifer Connelly as Penny Benjamin

Jon Hamm as Vice Admiral Cyclone

Glen Powell as Hangman

Lewis Pullman as Bob

Charles Parnell as Warlock

Bashir Salahuddin as Coleman

Monica Barbaro as Phoenix

Jay Ellis as Payback

Danny Ramirez as Fanboy

Greg Tarzan Davis as Coyote

Ed Harris as Rear Admiral

Val Kilmer as Admiral Tom 'Iceman' Kazansky

Manny Jacinto as Fritz

• Joseph Kosinski

Writer (based on characters created by)

• Jack Epps Jr.

Writer (story by)

• Peter Craig
• Justin Marks
• Ehren Kruger
• Eric Warren Singer
• Christopher McQuarrie

Cinematographer

• Claudio Miranda
• Chris Lebenzon
• Eddie Hamilton
• Lorne Balfe
• Harold Faltermeyer
• Hans Zimmer

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Top Gun Review

02 Feb 1986

110 minutes

Some movies are best treated as cinematic souvenirs. Like tacky snowglobes brought back from school trips to Switzerland, or bronze Eiffel Towers with dangerously sharp edges that linger on mantelpieces the world over, worthless and unloved, until they catch someone’s eye and remind them of the vanished age from which they came.

Top Gun is such a film. Defending it as a work of art would be either brave or reckless. As an historical artifact, though, it’s peerless. Like it or not, if you want to know what pop-film was like in the mid-’80s, there’s no better example than this chrome-burnished, distilled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life, high-gloss tale of testosterone-charged flyboys and their big, fast planes.

It was, of course, an outrageous hit, and Top Gun contains most of the pan-audience pleasing features that An Officer And A Gentleman (another Simpson / Bruckheimer film, and template for this one) had boasted: a military setting; exciting training sequences; good-looking male lead with a spiffy uniform; a love story; and a competitive element. The formula had worked before, and Simpson was betting it would work again.

Top Gun is not so much a movie in the conventional sense as an escalating series of masterfully crafted adverts: motorcycles, aircraft carriers, pectorals and planes all look as if they’ve been shot for a particularly luminous beer campaign (and while this style looks tired now, it was a revelation at the time). No wonder the American Navy not only provided millions of dollars’ worth of hardware gratis, but also stationed recruiting officers outside suburban multiplexes to catch testosterone-addled adolescents still promisingly drenched in cinematic piss and vinegar.

For their leading man, Simpson and Bruckheimer had their eye on a promising kid called Tom Cruise. Cruise had been bubbling under as a potential breakthrough star with Risky Business and All The Right Moves. Having just finished filming the mildly troubled Legend - directed by Tony’s brother - Cruise (hell, let’s call him The Cruiser, this is the ‘80s) was nervous about Top Gun; even that early in his career he was smart enough to see that the movie had the potential to be, as he put it, ìjust Flashdance in the skyî. But Simpson was determined, finally coughing up what would in retrospect be a very reasonable $1 million (Cruise’s first) for the 24 year-old. And Simpson was also determined to get his money’s worth. When an on-set military adviser pointed out that the majority of professional discourse in navy flight schools did not happen in locker rooms, nor with the flyers clad only in their underwear, Simpson was unimpressed. “I have just paid a million dollars for that kid,” he impatiently announced, “and I need to see some flesh.”

And so to the question, “Is it any good?” Well, what can be said with certainty is that with contemporary dreck like Van Helsing and Bad Boys II sloshing around the multiplexes (both movies that Simpson would likely have loathed), ‘80s dreck doesn’t look too bad. The flying sequences remain exciting, there is something approaching a story - even if it is emaciated - and, for good or ill, it inaugurated the Cruise grin, which still beams down from multiplex screens two decades later. Tat, certainly, then. But tat to be treasured.

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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Review: Tom Cruise Takes to the Skies, Literally, in Barrier-Breaking Sequel

Reteaming with 'Oblivion' director Joseph Kosinski, the perfectionist producer-star insists on flying his own planes in this stunning follow-up.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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The world is not the same place it was in 1986, when “Top Gun” ruled the box office. In Ronald Reagan, America had a movie star for a president, and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson as its honorary ministers of propaganda. The same year that “Platoon” challenged the United States’ militaristic track record, “Top Gun” sold a thrilling if narrow-minded fantasy of American exceptionalism — of boys and their toys, of macho-man bromance and what it means to be the best. Three years after Tom Cruise flipped the bird to a Russian MiG fighter plane, the Berlin Wall fell. Two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

One could argue that our new, post-Cold War world didn’t need a “Top Gun” sequel. (Tom Cruise himself once insisted as much.) But one would be wrong to do so. Building on the three-parts-steel-to-one-part-corn equation that director Tony Scott so effectively set 36 years earlier, the new film more than merits its existence, mirroring Cruise’s character, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, in pushing the limits of what the machine could do — the machine in this case being cinema, which takes to the skies as no blockbuster has before.

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Hardly anything in “ Top Gun: Maverick ” will surprise you, except how well it does nearly all the things audiences want and expect it to do. Orchestrated by Joseph Kosinski — the dynamo who collaborated with Cruise on “Oblivion” and first worked with Miles Teller on 2017’s terrific, underseen firefighter drama “Only the Brave” — to appeal to veterans and neophytes alike, this high-performance follow-up sends Maverick back to the Topgun program, where he won the heart of Charlie (Kelly McGillis) and lost best friend Goose (Anthony Edwards).

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Flashbacks notwithstanding, neither of those actors is in this movie, though the screenplay — a tag-team effort between Christopher McQuarrie (Cruise’s guy), Eric Warren Singer (Kosinski’s guy) and Ehren Kruger (yikes) — just about resurrects Goose via his now-adult son, Bradley Bradshaw (Teller), call sign “Rooster.” (“Phoenix” would be more apt, but that tag goes to Monica Barbaro, playing the lone woman in this testosterone pool.) The resemblance between Rooster and his late dad is uncanny, courtesy of a goofy moustache, some hair gel and a scene in which the young pilot pounds out “Great Balls of Fire” on the Hard Deck piano, the way Goose once did.

The Hard Deck is now operated by a character from Maverick’s past, Penny Benjamin ( Jennifer Connelly ), although she was only referenced in passing before: In “Top Gun,” Maverick is chewed out by his superior officer for having “a history of high-speed passes over five air control towers — and one admiral’s daughter!” Penny is that daughter: strong, independent and responsible for a daughter of her own (not Maverick’s, and too young to be his love interest). Cruise’s character has matured on the womanizing front, and the movie provides a shallow yet satisfying romantic subplot between him and Penny, which gives him something to come home for, since his daredevil tendencies otherwise give off strong kamikaze vibes.

In theory, Maverick should have graduated Topgun and gone back to teach what he’d learned to other Navy pilots. But after losing his flying partner, the character wound up being more of a loner — or so we learn, catching up with him all these years later, working as a test pilot and stuck at the rank of captain. Following a nostalgia-baiting aircraft carrier landing montage, wherein “Top Gun” theme “Danger Zone” blazes once again, Kosinski tracks Maverick to the Mojave Desert, still living up to his nickname when he takes a multimillion-dollar piece of government equipment — a supersonic, SR-71 Blackbird-style (fictional) Darkstar jet — out for a speed test.

Showing up as none-too-amused Navy brass, Ed Harris arrives just in time to eat a face full of sand as Maverick takes off at rocket speed, gently pushing the plane to Mach 10. (As a point of reference, the F-14s seen in “Top Gun” top out around Mach 2.) It’s a glorious scene, and one that melds everything Maverick once represented with Cruise’s own off-screen personality — which also explains all the self-driven motorcycle rides. The stunt nearly gets Maverick kicked out of the Navy. His only option: Go back to the training academy, where Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) is now filling Tom Skerritt/Viper’s shoes.

The script incorporates Kilmer’s throat cancer, such that Iceman has just one scene, communicating mostly by keyboard — but it’s a smart one, paying off the way the dynamic between these two ex-rivals has evolved. Considering the importance Goose and Rooster play in this next mission, which involves a near-impossible airstrike on a uranium plant, it would’ve been nice to see Meg Ryan return as the widow/mom, but the rules are cruel when it comes to aging female actors. Meanwhile, we can talk about all the cosmetic ways Cruise and Kilmer’s faces have evolved, although there’s only one change that matters: Cruise has perfected that little jaw-clenching trick that signifies “This is a really tough call.”

He won’t get an Oscar for pantomiming such swallow-your-pride stoicism, though Cruise deserves one for everything else the role demanded of him: If the flying scenes here blow your mind, it’s because a great many of them are the real deal, putting audiences right there in the cockpit alongside a cast who learned to pilot for their parts. The idea here is that Maverick has been grounded, relegated to coaching a dozen top-of-their-class hotshots, though he takes to the skies right away, trumping all of these aces in a series of adrenaline-fueled drills. Not a one of these students is convincing as a Navy pilot, though their personalities win us over all the same (even Glen Powell’s alpha-male “Hangman,” who serves as this movie’s Iceman equivalent), and once can imagine future spinoffs involving any of these characters.

“Top Gun” has always been “The Tom Cruise Show,” and no one believes for a second that Maverick won’t maneuver his way into flying the climactic mission. But he can’t do it alone: The operation calls for perfectly coordinated teamwork among six pilots, recalling the group air battle that bonded Iceman and Maverick in the original movie.

These days, videogame-styled blockbusters rely so heavily on CGI that it’s thrilling to see the impact of gravity on actual human beings, pancaked to their chairs by multiple G-forces. Sophisticated movie magic makes their performances seamless with the exterior airborne shots, while the commitment to filming practically everything practically feels like the cutting-edge equivalent of Howard Hughes’ history-making “Hell’s Angels.” The result is the most immersive flight simulator audiences will have ever experienced, right down to the great Dolby roar of engines vibrating through their seats (while the score teases cues for Lady Gaga’s end-credits anthem “Hold My Hand”).

Early on, Ed Harris’ character warns Maverick and his team that “one day, they won’t need pilots at all,” by which he means, drone technology is not far from allowing the Navy to do all of its flying by remote control. Cinema seems to be moving in that same direction, replacing actors with digital puppets and real locations with greenscreen plates — but not if Tom Cruise has anything to do with it. Engineered to hit so many of the same pleasure points as the original, “Top Gun: Maverick” fulfills our desire to go really fast, really far above ground — what the earlier film unforgettably referred to as “the need for speed.”

Still, this buckle-up follow-up also demonstrates why we feel the need for movie stars. It goes well beyond Cruise’s rah-rah involvement in what amounts to a glorified U.S. military recruitment commercial (the 1986 film might have been as perfectly calibrated as a Swiss watch, but it wasn’t subtle about its GI Joe agenda). It’s the way we identify with the guy when he’s doing what most of us thought impossible. Turns out we need Maverick now more than ever.

Reviewed at AMC Century City 15 (Imax), May 10, 2022. In Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition). MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 130 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release of a Paramount Pictures, Skydance, Jerry Bruckheimer Films presentation of a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production. Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison. Executive producers: Tommy Harper, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Chad Oman, Mike Stenson.
• Crew: Director: Joseph Kosinski. Screenplay: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie; story: Peter Craig, Justin Marks, based on characters created by Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. Camera: Claudio Miranda. Editor: Eddie Hamilton. Music: Lorne Balfe, Harold Faltermeyer, Hans Zimmer.
• With: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer.

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Top Gun: Maverick First Reviews: The Most Thrilling Blockbuster We've Gotten in Years

Critics say the long-awaited sequel is a must-see on the big screen and not only potentially better than the original, but also one of the best tom cruise movies ever..

TAGGED AS: Action , blockbusters , Film , films , movie , movies

Tom Cruise returns to the cockpit in Top Gun: Maverick , the long-awaited follow-up to the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun . And if you’re not already feeling the need for speed — again — then you might want to reconsider, because the first reviews for this legacy sequel are clear of the danger zone. In fact, many are even calling it a better movie than the original, and maybe even one of the best Tom Cruise movies of all time.

Here’s what critics are saying about Top Gun: Maverick :

Will Top Gun fans be happy?

On the whole, this is a thrilling sequel which is bound to delight fans of the first film. – Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle

It’s a follow-up that will thrill every Top Gun fan. – Philip De Semlyen, Time Out

Mainstream audiences will be happily airborne, especially the countless dads who loved Top Gun and will eagerly want to share this fresh shot of adrenaline with their sons. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

This follow-up, directed by Joseph Kosinski, deals in the same unexpected-itch-scratching bliss: it’s crammed with images you didn’t know you were desperate to see until the second you see them. – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

In the opening moments… you don’t know if you’re watching the original 1986 Top Gun or a new one. – Brian Truitt, USA Today

Tony Scott’s admirers may miss that disreputable edge, the unrepentantly vulgar sensibility that made the original Top Gun a dreamy, voluptuous hoot. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

(Photo by Scott Garfield/©Paramount Pictures)

How does it compare to the original?

Top Gun: Maverick improves on the original. It’s deeper, it’s not corny, and it has thrilling effects. – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

The dogfights, chases, and mid-air sequences are truly remarkable — far clearer and far more intense than anything in the original Top Gun . – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

A superior sequel. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

If Top Gun was a fun film because it invented Tom Cruise, Maverick is a great film because it immortalizes him. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Maverick ideally would be less formulaic – and for the record, it doesn’t quite match the magic of the OG Top Gun . – Brian Truitt, USA Today

Is it a worthy legacy sequel?

Few Hollywood reboots can boast this blend of nostalgia, freshness and adrenaline. You will want to high five someone on the way out. – Philip De Semlyen, Time Out

The film is a true legacy sequel. In the tradition of Star Wars: The Force Awakens , it’s a carefully reconstructed clone of its predecessor, tooled not only to reflect changing tastes and attitudes but the ascendancy of its star Tom Cruise to a level of fame that borders on the mythological. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

The sequel follows the original beat for beat, to a degree that’s almost comical. And yet, as formulaic as it is, there’s no denying that it delivers in terms of both nostalgia and reinvention. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Tom Cruise remains deeply ambivalent with the notion of passing the torch to a new generation onscreen and so Top Gun: Maverick remains focused on Maverick and his story, sometimes to the detriment of the young cast. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

(Photo by ©Paramount Pictures)

Is this one of the best blockbusters we’ve gotten in recent years?

Top Gun: Maverick is as thrilling as blockbusters get. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Top Gun: Maverick is the most fun I’ve had watching a big dumb Hollywood blockbuster for a while. – Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle

Takes to the skies as no blockbuster has before. – Peter Debruge, Variety

The movie soars – a reminder of how good Hollywood can be at popcorn entertainment when it sets its mind to it (and Cruise is involved). – Philip De Semlyen, Time Out

It is unquestionably the best studio action film to have been released since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road . – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

How does it rank against other Tom Cruise movies?

We have surely arrived at the Cruisiest film he’s yet made. – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

It’s not a Tom Cruise movie so much as it’s “ Tom Cruise: The Movie .” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

In terms of performance, this is one of Cruise’s best pictures. – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

It fully surrenders to the grandiose fun that’s marked the best of Cruise’s recent star vehicles. – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine

Cruise finds new ways to add depth to his signature character (sorry, Ethan Hunt) without sacrificing any of his essential qualities. – Brian Truitt, USA Today

How is Val Kilmer’s return as Iceman?

Kilmer’s brief cameo, in what has the feel of a swan song, carries far more weight than anything directly related to the story. – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine

The film’s most moving element comes during the brief screen time of Kilmer’s Iceman. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

If there’s one scene that really takes your breath away, it’s his. – Brian Truitt, USA Today

In one fictional moment, he gives us something unmistakably, irreducibly real, partly by puncturing the fantasy of human invincibility that his co-star has never stopped trying to sell. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

Are there any other standouts in the cast?

Miles Teller [gives] an oddly alluring performance that really shouldn’t work as well as it does. – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Teller, with his best turn since Whiplash, factors in as a worthy emotional foil. – Brian Truitt, USA Today

Jennifer Connelly brings a lot to a thankless role. – Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

Does Top Gun: Maverick deliver as an action movie?

It [has] what is surely one of the most impressive plane-based action scenes ever committed to film. – Matt Singer, ScreenCrush

The real draw here is, of course, the action, and Kosinski asserts his gift for large-scale filmmaking across the film’s runtime. – Jake Cole, Slant Magazine

The commitment to filming practically-everything practically feels like the cutting-edge equivalent of Howard Hughes’ history-making Hell’s Angels . – Peter Debruge, Variety

You have a series of character-driven, heart-in-your-throat dogfights more vivid than anything in the first previous film. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Breathtakingly balletic, and grounded in the increasingly rare pleasure of the tangible… it’s a true feat for director Joseph Kosinski to make something this ambitious look this effortless. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

The action scenes [have] a breathtaking beauty and urgency: the play of light and gravity on the actors’ faces, and the way the landscapes spin and drop away balletically through the canopy glass, puts other blockbusters’ green-screened swooping to shame. – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

The best thing this movie does is boost visceral analog action over the usual numbing bombardment of CG fakery. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Are there any major criticisms?

One would have appreciated a slightly more effective female-centric subplot. – Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle

The film, unfortunately, doesn’t extend as much of a loving hand toward the women of Top Gun . – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Women are few and far between, and even the more prominent ones get mostly perfunctory treatment. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

It would’ve been nice to see Meg Ryan return as the widow/mom, but the rules are cruel when it comes to aging female actors. – Peter Debruge, Variety

Do we need to see this on the big screen?

This is definitely a film that benefits from the IMAX experience, and the big-ass soundscape that comes with it. – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

This movie needs the big screen, preferably as big as you can find. I saw it in an IMAX theater, and now I have some idea of what it would feel like to take off in a fighter pilot from an aircraft carrier. – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

The result is the most immersive flight simulator audiences will have ever experienced, right down to the great Dolby roar of engines vibrating through their seats. – Peter Debruge, Variety

It’s the kind of edge-of-your-seat, fist-pumping spectacular that can unite an entire room full of strangers sitting in the dark and leave them with a wistful tear in their eye. – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

Will it leave us wanting more?

One can imagine future spinoffs involving any of these characters. – Peter Debruge, Variety

[It’s a] launching pad for a potential second or even third sequel with its young cast at the center of new adventures. – Linda Marric, The Jewish Chronicle

Top Gun: Maverick opens in theaters on May 27, 2022.

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Will There Be a 'Top Gun 3' Film? Here's Everything We Know So Far

After the success of Top Gun: Maverick , a third movie is in the works with Tom Cruise and Miles Teller.

Starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer , the movie follows Naval Aviator Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell as he gets stationed in the Indian Ocean along the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise . As Maverick gets the opportunity to train at the U.S. Navy's Fight Weapons School (also known as "Top Gun"), a series of events occurs that causes him to bond with those he didn't know initially.

The movie quickly garnered success at the box office, and it even won a Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Song, which was Berlin's hit "Take My Breath Away." It also later spawned a 2022 sequel, Top Gun: Maverick , which saw Tom and Val reprise their roles alongside a plethora of new actors to the franchise ( including Miles Teller and Glen Powell ) .

Given Top Gun: Maverick 's equal amount of recognition (including a 2023 Academy Award for Best Sound), it comes as no surprise that fans would want to know if a third Top Gun movie is in the works. Well, we have a major update, and it's one folks will want to pay close attention to.

Will there be a Top Gun 3 ?

As of January 2024, Top Gun 3 is officially in the works.

The announcement of another Top Gun film came from Deadline on January 11, which revealed Top Gun 3 is officially in development. According to the outlet, Top Gun: Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger is writing the upcoming movie and it will be produced by Paramount Pictures (the studio that produced the previous two films).

That's not all the publication revealed about Top Gun 3. Presently, it looks like Tom is not only on board, but he'd be reuniting with Miles Teller (who played Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw) and Glen Powell (who portrayed Lt. Jake "Hangman" Seresin) for the project, with Jerry Bruckheimer coming back as a producer for the film .

As for when will folks get to see Top Gun 3 ? Well, that remains to be seen. As Jerry told Screen Rant in March 2024, Tom is so busy with other projects, it's hard to tell when he'll have time to film the next Top Gun movie.

"You never know when it’s going to get made because Tom is so busy," he told the outlet at the time. "He’s doing Mission: Impossible right now, he’s got a picture after it. Hopefully, we’ll get a screenplay that he loves, and we’ll be back in the air again."

No matter the case, we're going to keep our fingers crossed for Top Gun 3 to happen!

As the entertainment and news editorial assistant for Good Housekeeping , Adrianna (she/her) writes about everything TV, movies, music and pop culture. She graduated from Yeshiva University with a B.A. in journalism and a minor in business management. She covers shows like The Rookie , 9-1-1 and Grey's Anatomy , though when she’s not watching the latest show on Netflix, she’s taking martial arts or drinking way too much coffee.

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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Soars Above the Original With One of the Best Blockbusters in Years | Review

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In many ways, Maverick’s ( Tom Cruise ) story in 1986’s Top Gun feels like a story told with the hindsight of an older man reflecting on the foolishness of his youth. The original Top Gun is two hours of machismo, sweaty showoffs, and toxic personalities, centered around a careless character who eventually learns the dangers of his cockiness and shenanigans. Top Gun is the kind of story that one could imagine an older character sharing with the younger generation, a cautionary tale about how life isn’t all hot dogging in planes, oiled-up volleyball, and Kenny Loggins songs. It’s not hard to imagine an older Maverick telling people that he used to be a real piece of shit.

Maverick made choices back in his 20s, choices that still have reverberations to this day, that haunt him, that inform his decisions almost forty years later. With Top Gun , we saw Maverick as a selfish character who put himself before everyone else, and while he still lives up to his name, now, he’s more interested in what’s best for the group as opposed to what’s best for him. In Top Gun: Maverick , the staggeringly great sequel from director Joseph Kosinski ( Oblivion , TRON: Legacy ), Maverick has been living in the shadow of the choices that younger Maverick made, and now, 36 years later, this character is back, ready to confront the danger zone of a past that has haunted him since the first film.

The changes in Maverick are apparent from the very first action sequence. The former hotshot pilot is trying to prove that he can take a plane to Mach 10 in order to prove that a plane with a living, breathing person behind it is more effective than an unmanned drone. The Maverick we last saw in Top Gun would’ve attempted this feat simply to boost his own ego, an attempt to prove that he’s the greatest pilot in the world. Yet in this sequence, Kosinski shows us that this isn’t his focus anymore, but rather, if he succeeds, it’ll be better for his team, who will likely lose their jobs if he fails. This selflessness is a completely different Maverick than the character we’ve seen before.

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But that doesn’t mean Maverick doesn’t still have the same daring and desire to push his boundaries. It’s this type of attitude that has left him at his current captain’s rank. As Vice Admiral “Cyclone” ( Jon Hamm ) tells Maverick, he can’t get promoted, he won’t retire, and he refuses to die. At the end of Top Gun , Maverick wanted to be a teacher, but after two months in the classroom thirty years ago, Maverick also couldn’t maintain that position. But Admiral Cyclone gives Maverick a choice: either he trains a group of Top Gun graduates for a highly-specialized mission, or Maverick will never fly again for the Navy. Maverick agrees, and heads back to Top Gun, where he trains an elite team of pilots, including the cocky Hangman ( Glen Powell ) and Rooster ( Miles Teller ), the son of Maverick’s late best friend, Goose.

As Maverick trains Hangman, Rooster, and the rest of these Top Gun graduates, Top Gun: Maverick finds a way to pay homage to the iconic moments of Top Gun , but in a way that doesn’t feel frivolous and serves a purpose in this new, more urgent story. For example, the sun-drenched beachside game this time around is used as a team-building tool, whereas this new gang getting together and singing at a bar leads to one of the film’s surprisingly emotional moments—of which there are several. Maverick finds a way to pay tribute to the past, but in a way that builds upon the film we know and adds weight to these moments.

Similarly, with Cruise returning as Maverick, Top Gun: Maverick feels like a character and an actor reliving their glory days in the most joyous way possible. Through Maverick, Cruise gets to explore one of his most infamous characters, but in a way that now has a significant amount of emotional heft. As Maverick, we get a reminder of just how many things Cruise does extremely well as an actor, and in some of these aspects, we’re seeing parts of Cruise in this role that we haven’t seen in years. Of course, Top Gun: Maverick allows Cruise to show that he remains one of the greatest living action stars, who—like Maverick—is willing to push his limitations to their breaking point. But Maverick also shows Cruise’s gifts at playing a compelling leading man, an effective romantic lead—alongside an equally wonderful Jennifer Connelly —a comedian with excellent timing, and an actor who can really make a film’s emotional moments sing.

Maverick , with its screenplay by Ehren Kruger , Eric Warren Singer , and Christopher McQuarrie , knows how to tap into that nostalgia for the original and find the emotional moments that would hit Maverick’s character hard, and Cruise plays these scenes with grace and power. There’s a clear love that Cruise, Kosinski, and this team of writers have for these characters and this story, and thanks in large part to Cruise’s performance, this love really shines through, especially in scenes where Maverick has to explore his past and the decisions that led him to where he is today.

The growth that this film shows over the original is arguably at its clearest with the new squad of pilots. Of course, there's still the arrogant pilot who thinks he's the best in Powell's Hangman, but especially with Teller's Rooster, we're seeing a character like Maverick, who is haunted by the legacy of this father and with something to prove, but without the smugness and pride. Through Teller's performance, we can see the weight of Maverick's past in human form, the pain he's caused, and the wrongs he wishes he could right, and some of Maverick 's best scenes involve Rooster and Maverick having to reckon with this difficult past. It's also exciting to see a new crew with more diversity and more character than we're genuinely excited to spend time with.

Kosinski does all this in what also is likely to be the best action film of 2022, a tense and continuously exciting epic that knows exactly how to escalate the tension of every impressive action sequence. Top Gun: Maverick might contain some of the best plane scenes in the history of film, and soars over the stunts of the original. This is the type of white-knuckle, awe-inducing action film that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible, with an audience stuck at the edge of their seats. Yet again, Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t include action for action's sake, each remarkable action sequence serves a narrative purpose, and expands what we know about these characters when they are in their element in the skies.

When talking about Top Gun: Maverick , it’s hard not to sound hyperbolic, but this is the rare case where it absolutely deserves all the massive praise. Top Gun: Maverick improves upon the original in every conceivable way (well, the soundtrack doesn’t have Berlin, so that’s one strike against it), and does so in a way that might make this one of the greatest sequels ever made. It’s also hard not to say this might have some of the most exciting action scenes to ever hit the skies, and gives Cruise one of his best performances by returning to the role that made him a star. Top Gun: Maverick is a marvel of a film, one that will truly take your breath away.

Top Gun: Maverick opens in theaters on May 27.

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“Top Gun: Maverick” Far Outflies Its Predecessor

The premise of “Top Gun: Maverick” is that America decides, on its own initiative, and possibly just for fun, to liquidate a uranium-enriching facility of a hostile power. What the effect of this attack might be on the combustible politics of the region in question matters not a jot. The mission justifies itself. After all, it means that Pete Mitchell ( Tom Cruise ), known as Maverick, can rejoin the fighting fray.

It’s been thirty-six years since we last met Maverick, in “Top Gun,” during which time he has zoomed up the ranks all the way from lieutenant to captain. He is the Dorian Gray of the U.S. Navy, kept forever young by his grin-powered talent for insubordination. When a colleague says, “I don’t like that look, Mav,” he replies, “It’s the only one I got.” As the movie begins, he ignores orders and takes a hypersonic jet out for an early-morning spin at Mach 10, to the fury of Admiral Cain (Ed Harris). Three points: (1) Only Harris could stand firm, as if hewn from the living rock, in the downdraft of a hypersonic jet; (2) The limit-busting flight, and its aftermath, are a straight steal from Sam Shepard’s daredevilry at the end of “The Right Stuff” (1983); (3) Is it just me, or does this new Maverickian sequence, much of it filmed on high in the dark dawn of the heavens, not glow with a genuine beauty?

The cinematographer is Claudio Miranda, and the director is Joseph Kosinski, although the movie’s Olympian creator, you might say, is Cruise. He’s right there, in total possession of the screen, both in closeup—with helmet, in the cockpit of a plane, or, if you prefer, without helmet, astride a motorbike—and in half length, stripped to the waist, playing football on the beach. The other players are his pupils. No kidding: upbraided and disgraced for his jinks at Mach 10, Maverick becomes a teacher . True, he’s back at Top Gun, schooling the latest hot shots, and prepping them for the blitz abroad, but still. Picture a film called “Bullitt 2: Parking on a Hill,” in which Steve McQueen returns as a driving instructor.

The eager young warriors in Maverick’s class are addressed by their call signs: Phoenix, Coyote, Payback, Fanboy, and so on, not forgetting the glamorous Bob. Of particular note are Hangman—the very model of a cocky bastard, portrayed with spirited glee by Glen Powell—and Rooster (Miles Teller). He should really be called Gosling, for he is the son of Goose (Anthony Edwards), who lay dead in Maverick’s arms, after ejecting, in “Top Gun.” The memory of that disaster is raw, and it sets up a crunchy dilemma: Will Rooster and Maverick sort out their differences and redeem the past? Hey, here’s a thought: why doesn’t Maverick quit the pedagogy and join Rooster on the jaunt to distant climes, with a chance to blow up some pesky nuclear shit? Chocks away, Mr. Chips!

Like many historical artifacts of the nineteen-eighties, the old “Top Gun” is fondly remembered, widely worshipped, and actually not very good. I suspect that Kosinski knows as much; hence the canny balance with which he retrieves some features of the first film and lets others alone. So, it’s welcome back to Iceman (Val Kilmer), once a rival jock, now an ailing commander of the fleet. But there’s no Kelly McGillis, who played Maverick’s awkwardly tall beloved, and, alas, no Meg Ryan, as Goose’s wife. New to the arena is Penny (Jennifer Connelly), who runs a bar, and takes Maverick sailing—a breezy and unusual scene, in that he is momentarily caught at a disadvantage. At altitude, in an F-18, he can duck and dive all day, but tell him to cleat a halyard and he’s all at sea.

If Hangman and the gang are, as we are frequently informed, the best of the best, then Maverick, yachtsmanship aside, must be the best of the best of the best. The triumphalism of the movie’s mood—like the absurdity of its plot, which concludes with a bitch of a dogfight over land and sea—is so puppyish as to be disarming, and its lunges at heartfelt conflict, as opposed to airborne jousting, have a comical smack of the playground. (“I saved your life.” “ I saved your life.”) Yet the plain fact is that “Top Gun: Maverick” works. Designed to coax a throng of viewers into a collective and involuntary fist pump, it far outflies the original, while retaining one old-fashioned virtue: the lofty action unfolds against real skies, rather than giant smears of C.G.I. The heroes may do super stuff, but they’re not superheroes. Enjoy them while you can. As Maverick is warned by his superior, “The future is coming. And you’re not in it.” The next generation of pilots will not be people at all. Who wants to watch “Top Drone”? Not me.

The first half hour or so of “Men,” the new movie from Alex Garland, is a bad green dream. Historical instinct may tell us that the countryside is a refuge: “Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?” the banished duke inquires of his fellow-exiles, in “As You Like It.” But there is another tradition, the anti-pastoral, which bids us beware. Even as we flee the iron and stone of the cities, in search of more easeful landscapes, are we quite sure of what we will find? Can we have the grass without the snakes?

Many horror movies, of course, toy with rustic terror, yet they tend to treat the back of beyond as a mere trap—a spot in which to strand some urban bozos. “Men,” however, digs into the idea of a haven and unearths both loveliness and disquiet. Look at Harper ( Jessie Buckley ), say, who drives out of London into deepest England, pursuing peace. She walks over fields drenched in greenness, past trees that are furred with moss as soft as baize, and down a disused railroad track, into the mouth of a tunnel, within which everything drips. The farther she ventures into this ripening world, the less consoling it feels. The director of photography, Rob Hardy, who also shot Garland’s “ Ex Machina ” (2014) and “Annihilation” (2018), somehow brings a tincture of menace to bluebells . Just a trick of the light, I guess, although, according to old British folklore, a child who picked a bluebell would never be seen again.

Harper is in mourning. She recently lost her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu), who fell from a balcony of their London apartment block, after the two of them had argued. (In a slow-motion flashback, she watches him descend through the air, with a howl.) As Buckley showed in “Beast” (2017) and “The Lost Daughter” (2021), her expressive candor can be almost painful to behold, and she is fast becoming the doyenne of the emotionally embattled; gazing at Harper, we sense something angry and unresolved in her lamentation. Sooner or later, in this rural retreat, rage will be coming into bloom.

For all the poise of these early scenes, there is a sudden clunk, which augurs badly for the rest of “Men.” Harper, who is renting a large house from a hearty gentleman named Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), stands before an apple tree in his garden. Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucks, she eats. “Mustn’t do that,” Geoffrey tells her. He adds that he’s joking, but the problem is that the movie isn’t joking, and, before long, it changes direction and turns nasty.

As she explores her surroundings, Harper encounters a naked prowler; a creepy vicar, who lays a hand on her leg in the churchyard; a kid in a mask, who calls her a bitch; a policeman; and a pub landlord, plus two of his customers. All of them, including the boy, are played by Kinnear, with no other actors in sight, and they seem to be interchangeable. When Harper strikes one of them in self-defense as he tries to break in, leaving his hand and forearm neatly sliced, each of them then bears the identical wound. Huh?

The moral of this film appears to be: every male, regardless of age and social status, means harm to womankind. Men are defined, and propelled, by the ill will that they bear to the opposite sex, and by their barely concealed belief that women, from Eve to Harper, are asking for trouble. Thus, Harper is sexually assaulted by the vicar, who blames her for the death of James. (And he assaulted her, too, when he was alive.) On and on the malevolence goes. One abusive man spawns another; what form that spawning takes, courtesy of some outlandish special effects, I leave you to imagine.

There will be viewers, no doubt, who share the violent bleakness of the movie’s outlook. Will they admire such rigor, or will they reckon, as I did, that it narrows and flattens the free movement of the drama, with dismal results? After a while, the story has nowhere to go. Of the delicate eco-fable with which Garland began his tale, little remains, although, in a magical twist, the naked man sprouts leaves and stems from his face and body—as did various folk in “Annihilation,” and as does the Green Man, an ancient figure who can still be seen carved in English churches. In an era of plague and climatic disturbance, there is no more fertile issue than the inter-wreathing of the human and the natural, and no one better than Garland to give it luxuriant life onscreen. Maybe next time. ♦

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Top Gun: Maverick

After more than 30 years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him.

Dove Review

If you were a fan of the original Top Gun , you’ll be a fanatic after watching its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick .

Ice Man has worked his way up the ranks, climbing to a prestigious position as Commander of the Pacific Fleet. His honorable, inarguable rank and continued friendship with Maverick have kept Mav out of trouble (sort of) for the last 30 years.

However, when a special U.S. mission requires dog-fight combat like the military has never trained for, let alone engaged, Maverick returns as Top Gun’s lead instructor.

Top Gun gathers its 12 best recent graduates, all young and desperate for real action, and Maverick must select the top six for this classified mission. Instructing this elite group of aviators seems like an honor, a chance at nostalgia, until Goose’s son, Bradley (call sign Rooster), is selected as part of the 12.

Rooster still holds resentment towards Maverick and blames him for unhealed wounds of the past. As training time runs out and the top six must be selected, Maverick and Rooster have a lot of challenges to overcome (both in the airplane and back at the hangar).

From an overall thematic stance, this movie is excellent, well-produced. The technology behind filming multiple high-intensity scenes far outpaces the 1986 classic.

In addition, themes of camaraderie, forgiveness, and bravery are significant. (And as a bonus, the sequel has far less sexual content than the original Top Gun .)

However, cussing is prevalent throughout the film. The F-word and GD are used once or twice while other cuss words (A, B, D, H) show up consistently throughout the script.

Due to the language and occasional brawl taken too far, this film is Not Dove-approved.

Dove Rating Details

The admiral says that the only reason Maverick is alive is because of “the Almighty and [his] guardian angel.”

Consistent themes of camaraderie, forgiveness, and bravery; nobility and sacrifice prevalent; Maverick has grown into a humble character.

Maverick and his love interest heavily kiss at the close of the movie; sex scene implied without nudity or explicit content.

F and GD used once or twice; multiple uses of A, B, D, and H; insult regarding male genitalia used too.

An intense scene featuring fighter-pilot combat; a few students get into a physical altercation.

Several bar scenes where characters drink; no one is ever drunk.

Maverick’s love interest wears a slightly revealing top.

Heavy scenes regarding sickness, death, and the past are scattered throughout the film.

More Information

Film information, dove content.

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Top Gun: Maverick Reviews

“Top Gun: Maverick,” if anything, proves that old-school big-budget blockbuster cinema that takes itself seriously isn’t just sorely missing from the yearly cinematic roster but still has the power to stand on its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

Ohh right this is what movies used to be like.

Full Review | Apr 24, 2024

Top Gun: Maverick is the reason why I go to the movies and why Tom Cruise is the biggest movie star in the world. WHAT. A RIDE.

Full Review | Sep 27, 2023

Maverick dished out generous amounts of bromance, action, and a truly-immersive narrative in swashbuckling style, and Cruise’s iconic grin was still the greatest thing to take away from it.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2023

It is all of the flying sequences that are shot in such a way that it makes the moviegoer feel like they are a passenger that gives the movie its energy and makes it so much fun.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 9, 2023

Top Gun: Maverick is a surprising stunner crafted with pure adrenaline and kerosene.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 29, 2023

Tom Cruise might save cinema.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

SPECTACULAR! One of the best cinematic experiences I have truly ever had in a theater. Heartfelt, exhilarating & down right emotional. Tom Cruise turns in one of his best performances & Top Gun 2 becomes one of his best films in his Career.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The return of pure, nostalgic blockbusters. The best aerial action sequences ever amaze even the highest expectations, not only due to the absolutely insane real stunts but largely because of the flawless contribution of all filmmaking elements.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 25, 2023

The final scenes are truly nail biting, with intense flight sequences that result in Tom Cruise’s cast members going from nearly unknown performers, to A-list stars in a matter of minutes.

Top Gun: Maverick is the rare sequel that elevates its source material and creates a new, worthwhile story. A high-octane thrill ride that celebrates where Maverick's been and where he’s going.

The film is pure ideology, pure militarism, generic, and like the first Top Gun in 1986, undemanding.

Full Review | Mar 16, 2023

Women in Top Gun: Maverick don’t see much development, but written dialogue and camerawork treat them with respect.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Mar 6, 2023

There’s no reason in the world it should have worked, but it does.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Feb 21, 2023

A movie-movie with an old-school movie star, this actioner is best seen in theatres, where the dazzling fighter-jet sequences will make you dizzy.

Full Review | Feb 10, 2023

All of these elements come together to form one of the biggest third acts in recent cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Feb 10, 2023

While other actors disappear behind their roles, Tom Cruise wants you to know it's him. This movie uses all of its technical marvel to bring us back to an adrenaline-filled formula blockbuster full of emotion. Made for the movies. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Feb 6, 2023

Top Gun: Maverick is a little bloated at times and could have used a bit of trimming, especially in its third act, but there’s no denying the magnetic energy the film brings to the viewer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 6, 2023

"It’s a valid critical interpretation that Top Gun: Maverick is merely propaganda wrapped in a very pretty bow. But boy, that bow is really something."

Full Review | Feb 4, 2023

Its a sure-footed performance from an actor that never fails to hold the attention of its audience.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2023

Top Gun: Maverick Review

Maverick is back in a higher-flying sequel to remember..

Top Gun: Maverick debuts in theaters on May 24, 2022.

The spirit of the ‘80s soars sky-high in Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick. Every scene drips with the neon-yellow cheesiness that makes Tony Scott's beloved flyboy action flick so tasty. The original Top Gun rarely took itself seriously amidst all the sweaty co-pilot homoeroticism, and the same goes for Top Gun: Maverick outside a few modern tweaks. Women are no longer relegated to solely being love interests, and someone installed an air conditioner in Fightertown, USA — yet none of the renegade attitudes, forced overdramatics, and aerial thrills throttle backward. The iconic title theme guitar riff wails within seconds and takes our proverbial breath away.

Top Gun: Maverick can't help but indulge the original film's emphasis on soap opera drama without any wasted time. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is still the same rule-breaker 30 years later, who we meet breaking protocol and defying orders for a special operation that's about to be canned. Cruise is still fearless, showing that same giddiness inside a cockpit, and his character finds himself sent back to Top Gun after pissing off yet another admiral (played by Ed Harris) who can't believe Captain Maverick lives to fly another day. Familiarity is the name of the introduction, as Maverick finds himself an instructor amongst ace Top Gun graduates summoned back by commanding officer "Cyclone" (Jon Hamm) for what's assumed to be one notch below a suicide mission.

It's the Top Gun sequel purists will crave. Miles Teller as Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Anthony Edwards’ “Goose,” is the spitting image of his late on-screen father, from his piano rendition of "Great Balls of Fire" to his bushy caterpillar mustache. As Penny Benjamin, Jennifer Connelly steps comfortably into the role of Maverick's ex-fling and rekindled romantic interest, replacing Kelly McGillis’ Charlie with nary a mention. Glen Powell’s "Hangman" is the hot-shot that reminds of Maverick's in-flight cockiness, and so comparisons continue. Plotlines thicken with the speed of quick-drying cement, because Top Gun: Maverick is the butteriest type of popcorn entertainment. You're here for the cowboy antics, shirtless beach sports, and close calls with multi-million-dollar aircrafts — which Top Gun: Maverick delivers without all those messy storytelling complexities.

New additions to the formula are welcome, like "Phoenix" (Monica Barbaro) — and actress Kara Wang to a lesser degree as a background Top Gunner — breaking down the boys club towel-whipping that dominates the original. That's not to say all the screaming about butts and skin-on-skin caresses in shower rooms isn't missed — it's part of Top Gun's DNA — but writers Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie create a tighter yet equally silly screenplay. Dialogue is still torn from some Hallmark Naval academy program because the film can't resist throwing Goose's son into the mix or handing Maverick a seemingly impossible task. Although, Maverick loves impossible odds and making Jon Hamm's tight-buttoned commander pucker in frustration as much as we love watching Maverick's insubordinate behavior — so that's not entirely an issue.

What's your favorite Tom Cruise movie?

Nearly 40 years after the original’s release, Top Gun: Maverick impressively capitalizes on advancements to dogfight filmmaking. Top Gun was revolutionary for its time, but Top Gun: Maverick leaves the outdated ‘80s action flick in the dust thanks to Claudio Miranda's breakneck cinematography. Whether it's green screens or cockpit-mounted cameras, everything from routine training drills to overhead combat looks immeasurably crisp. Kosinski suspends us in mid-air for a bird's eye view of Maverick's hazardous teaching methods — zooming between his pupils with a smile while they gasp at the playful negligence. Everything, down to the misty streams that flow around the glass bubble that protects the pilots, exists with excruciating detail as Maverick, Rooster, and the rest race against time and once-friendly lessons turn to free-fire military applications. When Kenny Loggins was singing about danger zones, he probably imagined what would become Top Gun: Maverick.

There's no argument that Top Gun: Maverick manages to rocket into our hearts, but it's not exactly the tidiest screenplay. It all returns to that trademark silliness because the emotional stakes are often scooped in single servings. That didn’t rob me of any smiles, but I couldn’t ignore how much Top Gun: Maverick honors Top Gun — even down to ridiculous plot advancements that always put Maverick on the path to personal reconciliation or victory. Expect no-stakes entertainment in terms of showing up to a movie theater and disconnecting for about two hours as airplanes go "whoosh, where Maverick swears never to let another wingman or wingwoman die on his watch [slams fist on the table for dramatic effect]. But rest assured, that's not entirely a killjoy ding – I type that having just smiled through Top Gun: Maverick.

Top Gun: Maverick is an out-of-bounds blast of afterburner fumes and thrillseeker highs that's sure to please audiences looking for a classic summer blockbuster. Director Joseph Kosinski doesn't lose the ‘80s nostalgia of movies that were light on reason and huge on chest-beating heroism. The fresh graduate faces are all aces, fighter jet choreography exceptional, and pursuit of excitement at Mach levels. It's never an exceptionally thoughtful movie about pilots pushed to the brink by Naval command, but it doesn't have to be when an insatiable need for speed propels standout action sequences. Top Gun: Maverick is good ol' cheesy as hell, silly-heroic entertainment with mile-high enthusiasm — a welcome throwback to simpler cinematic times.

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Brad pitt ‘f1’ teaser trailer arrives: “we need to build our car for combat”.

Damson Idris co-stars in the movie from 'Top Gun: Maverick' director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

By Mia Galuppo

Mia Galuppo

Film Writer

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The first trailer for Brad Pitt ‘s Formula 1 movie has arrived. The F1 teaser features a high-speed montage of racing set to Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

“Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston and now McLaren all have a speed on the straights. Our shot is battling it in the turns,” Pitt says in the trailer. “We need to build our car for combat.”

When a woman asks him, “How am I supposed to make that safe?” He responds, “Who said anything about safe?”

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'gladiator ii' trailer brings paul mescal, denzel washington into the arena for battle, blackpink's lisa to co-headline 2024 global citizen festival.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by FORMULA 1® (@f1)

Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles, Kim Bodnia and Samson Kayo also star.

The movie will hit theaters in North America on June 27, 2025, and reteams the filmmakers behind  Top Gun: Maverick , including director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Internationally, the movie will begin rolling out June 25.

Kosinski produces the feature alongside Bruckheimer and Chad Oman of Jerry Bruckheimer Films; and Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner for Plan B Entertainment, and Lewis Hamilton under his Dawn Apollo Films banner.

As reported by  The Hollywood Reporter , the movie landed at Apple under a deal that assured the film would receive a substantial theatrical release via Warner Bros., with a window of at least 30 days, if not longer.

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Sharon stone to receive taormina film fest lifetime achievement honor, locarno fest lineup includes hong sang-soo, paz vega films, honors for mélanie laurent, guillaume canet, maika monroe talks fighting for ‘longlegs,’ why she nearly gave up acting and ‘it follows 2’, scarlett johansson gets surprise welcome to ‘jurassic world’ from franchise favorite, paul mescal says it would be “amazing” if ‘gladiator ii’ and ‘wicked’ replicated barbenheimer, doug liman and tom cruise are still “talking about” doing an ‘edge of tomorrow’ sequel.

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Paramount Agrees to Merge With Skydance

The deal, approved by Paramount’s board, would usher in a new chapter for the company, which owns CBS and the movie studio behind “Top Gun.”

By Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch

Paramount and Skydance said on Sunday they had reached an agreement to merge, a deal that would usher in a new era for CBS, Nickelodeon and the film studio behind the “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises.

The deal is a turning point for the Redstone family, whose fortunes have been intertwined with the rise and fall of the traditional entertainment industry during the decades of its tumultuous ownership of Paramount and its predecessors. Shari Redstone, Paramount’s board chair, is cashing in much of her ownership in the company she fought to preserve and control.

The merger has a “go shop” period that will give Paramount’s board a 45-day window to see if it can find a superior deal.

But if the Skydance deal closes, it will anoint a new mogul in Hollywood. David Ellison, the tech scion behind Skydance, will become the top power broker at Paramount . The deal is in some ways the story of media writ large, with a family that made its fortune in traditional entertainment largely replaced by one enriched by technology — Mr. Ellison is the son of the Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The Ellisons’ considerable resources were a major selling point for the Redstones, who were seeking to shore up Paramount for the long-term.

“Given the changes in the industry, we want to fortify Paramount for the future while ensuring that content remains king,” Ms. Redstone said in a statement.

The merger closes a chapter for Ms. Redstone, 70, who took over from her father, Sumner, and fought to keep the family media empire intact.

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