Starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connolly, Miles Teller, Ed Harris, John Hamm, Monica Barbaro, Glen Powell

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Paramount, out May 25

Maverick is recalled to Top Gun to train a batch of graduates of the famous academy for a deadly mission with little chance of success. But can he overcome the ghosts of his past?

There’s a brief period as Top Gun: Maverick opens where you’ll wonder if the studio is trolling you. That inimitable chime from Harold Faltermeyer’s classic Top Gun Anthem sounds, as the same white type across a black screen tells us the story of how Top Gun came to be formed, and then Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone erupts into life over an orange-tinted montage of carrier crew sending planes up into the sky. Have they, I silently wondered as these opening moments played out, simply re-made Top Gun?

Happily, the answer is no, although at this stage I must caveat this conclusion with an early warning – if the 1986 Tony Scott-helmed original did nothing for you, this movie is likely to miss you with a lot of its beats, keying as it does directly into events and characters (and the audience’s feelings about both) from its predecessor.

So the film proper opens and Maverick is living his best life, fixing up an old WW2 Mustang fighter and working as test pilot for the Navy for a new, hypersonic aircraft. Predictably, when informed that the programme has been scrapped, Maverick responds by taking the plane up anyway, in a sequence that’s as breathtaking as it is emotionally resonant to any Top Gun fan. Even though you basically anticipate what will happen, the film keeps you hanging on the edge of your seat waiting, a masterclass in building and maintaining tension, and an early marker for how the movie as a whole will play out.

Having got our re-acquaintance with Maverick out of the way, the movie proper can start. Summoned to Top Gun by the orders of Admiral Kazansky – Iceman himself – Maverick, still very much a captain, has been recommended by his old wingman to train a selection of former Top Gun graduates for a mission which seems impossible. Noticeably, the movie avoids the out and out chest thumping of its predecessor, the enemy in this case being a vaguely alluded but unnamed ‘hostile nation’ developing weapons the US cannot countenance them having. The target facility will be up and running in a certain amount of time and is surrounded by massed defences and deadly mountainous terrain. There’s also a cohort of ‘Fifth Generation’ fighters to deal with – far superior to anything the Navy has available. It’s a classic, time constrained suicide mission, and in best Dirty Dozen/Kelly’s Heroes tradition, not everyone is expected to come home.

Adding a complex dimension to the mission from Maverick’s perspective is the presence among the recruits of Lt Bradley Bradshaw, callsign Rooster, the son of his former navigator and best friend Goose. Tension is obvious between the two from early in the movie, though the exact nature and depth of the issue doesn’t become clear until about halfway through. At any rate, Maverick isn’t happy about a lot of things – the presence of Rooster, his inability to get on the mission – his job is to train and nothing more, and the fact that he can’t get his commanding officer to align with his way of thinking.

Much like the first movie, this focuses on the man over the machine – that mythical version of the fighter pilot who can coax more out of an airframe than should physically be possible. This is thematic right from the early disagreement with Ed Harris’ Admiral Cain, nicknamed by his subordinates ‘The Drone Ranger’, and carries through the way in which the training takes place, the disagreements between Maverick and John Hamm’s Vice Admiral Simpson and the third act which rapidly starts to dispense with any pretence at reality or a grounded feel in favour of pure escapism fantasy. It’s the American Fighter Jock as the all-conquering superhero, the central character living up to his callsign by resolutely ignoring the rulebook and finding his own way to come out on top every time.

It’s also somewhat of a love letter to the idea of that character coming of age – of finally feeling the need to settle down. Jennifer Connolly’s Penny is clearly a former fling of Maverick’s but as he takes stock of his life, his naval career coming to an end and his failure to be the father figure to his best friend’s son that he wanted to be, there’s the sense that Cruise wants his hero to finally get the happy ending he obviously feels he deserves. When Charlie walked into that bar at the end of Top Gun, Maverick sat with his instructor’s cap in front of him, you never really had the sense that Maverick had learned anything or grown at all – he’d pushed past and through the loss of his friend and learned a truth about his father which served to reaffirm to him that his hard-headed refusal to play by the rules was the right way to go. Here, as the film moves towards its conclusion, I had a different feeling. This is a Maverick who has grown – one particular exchange with Penny in a quiet moment serving to emphasise just how far behind the selfish, cocky jock has been left. This isn’t so much the old warhorse proving he’s just as good as the new kids as it is the old warhorse realising that his time has almost come and looking seriously to what comes next.

Speaking of the new kids, they really do get their own chance to shine here. Monica Barbaro as Phoenix and Lewis Pullman’s Bob are the standout stars of the new set easily. Phoenix is a refreshing change from the ‘ballbusting’ stereotype these movies all too often fall into, being simply a pilot as strong, capable and competitive as her fellows with her gender never brought up once by herself or her fellows. Bob is a character whose introduction marks him out as being surely the light relief of the whole enterprise but who ends up being solid, dependable and as much a part of the team as anyone.

Miles Teller as Rooster is perhaps the worst served, only in so far as the film really goes a little too hard on emphasising his similarity to his father and gives him a slightly one note character beat of being overly cautious in an arc which can only end one way. Teller does his best with what he’s given, and it’s a credit to him that he pulls it off, but it’s undeniable that of the new breed, his story is the weakest. Glen Powell as Hangman is the movie’s new Iceman, all cocksure bravado and instantly hard to like. That he manages to become every bit as likeable as Iceman was at the end of the first movie is a testament more to Powell’s considerable range than it is the writers’ skill.

And as for the flying sequences – anyone who, like me, enjoyed Top Gun’s flight sequences but wanted more, will be well served here. True to the spirit of the original, you can see the work that’s gone into giving the most authentic shots possible, and whereas the actual stunts on display may be way outside normal military protocols, they look amazing and the action is never less than stellar to watch. On an IMAX screen, the thing is nothing short of breathtaking, and I’d recommend it if you have the option.

It’s not all just big flashy stunts and all-American bravado though. This is a film that has heart in spades. The showing I attended had the audience whooping and cheering at the highs, laughing at the jokes, and I’m not ashamed to confess the odd sob from myself at the particularly poignant parts.

Ultimately though as I said at the beginning of this review, what you get out of this one will depend largely on our opinion of the first movie. If you’re invested in those characters and their stories, then this will hook you in and take you on a ride. If you’re not, the new characters and the strength of the movie in and of itself will likely see you have a good time, but possibly not a great one, especially when you get to that third act and the film throws all sense of restraint away and just decides to have a good old-fashioned bit of wish-fulfilment fun.

For me though, as an avowed fan of the 1986 original, who’s been waiting (not so) patiently for two years for this to finally come out, it was everything I could have wanted it to be and more. Rare indeed is it that I go into a movie with high expectations and find them met. Rarer still that they are exceeded. But this movie does indeed fly that high, and in the words of Berlin’s soundtrack single for the first movie, it really did take my breath away.

Verdict: A movie that absolutely cashes every cheque its script writes. 10/10

Greg D. Smith