Top Gun: Maverick Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Paramount Pictures Studios, Action, Adventure, PG-13.

2 h 11 m 

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

After thirty-seven years of waiting, finally the sequel to “Top Gun” has come out. The movie was released on May 27 and gained unexpected traction. 

The original movie of “Top Gun” was the story of how Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) were accepted into the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, commonly known as TOPGUN, where they competed with the best of the best, one of them being Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer). 

Since it has been so long since the original movie, most of the original characters don’t appear in the sequel, which is disappointing. The biggest character who didn’t appear was Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), who was Maverick’s love interest, and there is no explanation as to where the relationship went or why it ended, which leaves the audience hanging. A character who did appear was the trash-talking Iceman, but he actually didn’t talk much due to Val Kilmer having a tracheotomy in 2014. Despite this, it seems that over the years in between the films, Iceman and Maverick put aside their differences because the two had a heartwarming reunion onscreen. 

In the sequel to “Top Gun”, it is years later, and yet Maverick is still making gutsy and reckless moves in Navy planes. He hasn’t made his way up the ranks and is still a Captain because he doesn’t want to be taken out of the cockpit. Maverick is sent back to TOPGUN per Iceman’s request to instruct a special mission, and when he’s briefed on the mission to destroy a uranium enrichment facility, he finds out that he has to instruct Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of his late friend and former RIO, Goose, among others of Top Gun’s best, including Jake “Hangman” Seresin and Natasha “Phoenix” Trace. 

Maverick has a not-so-new love interest, Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), who was referenced in the original as an ex-girlfriend of Maverick’s and the daughter of an Admiral who is unknown to viewers. In “Top Gun: Maverick” they rekindle the relationship. 

The way that the plot is executed is similar to the original movie. There are a lot of scenes that were parallels and pay homage to the original. At the beginning of the movie, it has a scene where Rooster plays piano singing “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis, which is something Goose did in an unforgettable scene. 

The special effects and the aerial sequences used for the flight scenes were not cheesy at all, they heightened the action and overall made the movie more thrilling to watch. Tom Cruise lead the cast of “Top Gun: Maverick” in a three-month flight course according to the New York Times, and that definitely contributed to the authenticity of the film. That’s right, all of the scenes in the cockpit, were actually in the air, and according to the New York Times, the aerial with the F-18 exterior was filmed with “two types of jets with exterior cameras mounted on wind-resistant gimbals, and a helicopter”. 

This movie had its ups and downs, and definitely a lot of twists and turns. Some explosions, too. Currently, “Top Gun: Maverick” can only be seen in theaters, but once it leaves theaters it will likely be premiering on Paramount Plus.