Posted on May 23, 2022
'Top Gun: Maverick' is ridiculous. It's also ridiculously entertaining
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https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/ [login to see] /top-gun-maverick-review-tom-cruise-sequel
In one of the more memorable lines in the original Top Gun, Maverick gets chewed out by a superior who tells him, "Son, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash."
Sometimes I wonder if Tom Cruise took that putdown as a personal challenge. No movie star seems to work harder or push himself further than Cruise these days. He just keeps going and going, whether he's scaling skyscrapers in a new Mission: Impossible adventure or showing a bunch of fresh-faced pilots how it's done in the ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining Top Gun: Maverick.
In one of the more memorable lines in the original Top Gun, Maverick gets chewed out by a superior who tells him, "Son, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash."
Sometimes I wonder if Tom Cruise took that putdown as a personal challenge. No movie star seems to work harder or push himself further than Cruise these days. He just keeps going and going, whether he's scaling skyscrapers in a new Mission: Impossible adventure or showing a bunch of fresh-faced pilots how it's done in the ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining Top Gun: Maverick.
'Top Gun: Maverick' is ridiculous. It's also ridiculously entertaining
Posted from npr.org
Movies
Flying
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 3
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
PO2 Marco Monsalve "If It Isn't Fun, Why Bother" One of My Many Responses on why I was a Navy Spook for 21 Years. Also Always get a Kick at watching things Getting "Hollywooded" in Movies, Every Navy Movie.
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I'll watch it when it's available on HBO Max or Paramount +. Seems like it is a fitting sequel!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The action sequences are much more thrilling and immersive than in the original. You feel like you're really in the cockpit with these pilots, and that's because you are: The actors underwent intense flight training and flew actual planes during shooting. In that respect, Top Gun: Maverick feels like a throwback to a lost era of practical moviemaking, before computer-generated visual effects took over Hollywood. You start to understand why Cruise, the creative force behind the movie, was so driven to make it: In telling a story where older and younger pilots butt heads, and state-of-the-art F-18s duke it out with rusty old F-14s, he's trying to show us that there's room for the old and the new to coexist. He's also advancing a case for the enduring appeal of the movies and their power to transport us with viscerally gripping action and big, sweeping emotions.
Which brings us to the movie's most powerful scene, in which Val Kilmer briefly reprises his role as Iceman, Maverick's former nemesis-turned-friend. Kilmer is, in some respects, Cruise's opposite: a onetime star whose career never quite found its groove, and who's been beset by health issues in recent years, including the loss of his voice due to throat cancer. His soulful presence here gives this high-flying melodrama the grounding it needs. Cruise may be this movie's immortal star, but it's Kilmer's aching performance that takes your breath away."
..."The action sequences are much more thrilling and immersive than in the original. You feel like you're really in the cockpit with these pilots, and that's because you are: The actors underwent intense flight training and flew actual planes during shooting. In that respect, Top Gun: Maverick feels like a throwback to a lost era of practical moviemaking, before computer-generated visual effects took over Hollywood. You start to understand why Cruise, the creative force behind the movie, was so driven to make it: In telling a story where older and younger pilots butt heads, and state-of-the-art F-18s duke it out with rusty old F-14s, he's trying to show us that there's room for the old and the new to coexist. He's also advancing a case for the enduring appeal of the movies and their power to transport us with viscerally gripping action and big, sweeping emotions.
Which brings us to the movie's most powerful scene, in which Val Kilmer briefly reprises his role as Iceman, Maverick's former nemesis-turned-friend. Kilmer is, in some respects, Cruise's opposite: a onetime star whose career never quite found its groove, and who's been beset by health issues in recent years, including the loss of his voice due to throat cancer. His soulful presence here gives this high-flying melodrama the grounding it needs. Cruise may be this movie's immortal star, but it's Kilmer's aching performance that takes your breath away."
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