Top Gun: Maverick - Cannes review: Taking our breath away, again

In the last ten years, almost all significant films and franchises from the 80s have experienced a diabolical return to life through a series of remakes, reboots, and sequel films, often so bad and unattractive that it is best to forget that they were made. The popularity of reviving the buried bones of pop culture is so great that it has become hard to listen and it is still going on. However, after everything we went through with the exception of the cute-but-okay GhostBusters: Afterlife and very good Creed movies, we just got the sequel to the movie Top Gun, which this time also bears the label of its protagonist Maverick.

While the first film was directed in 1986 by Tony Scott, this sequel is signed by Joseph Kosinski who has the mediocre films Oblivion and Tron: Legacy behind him. A good part of the original film crew is back, of course including Tom Cruise in the title role, while newcomers include Miles Teller in the role of Bradly "Rooster" Bradshaw, son of the late Goose from the first film and several great young acting talents like Monica Barbaro and Glen Powell in the roles of the best cadets who join the Top Gun program.

Him, what exactly is Top Gun: Maverick? Just like the first film, it is a film about a man’s struggle with his own homosexuality. The Tarantino joke, aside, Top Gun: Maverick, is set almost 40 years after the original film. The world has changed a lot, and yet Maverick is still a pilot, a mischievous captain who maniacally boldly chases women, loves motorcycles, and flies military planes. After another in a series of stunts, Maverick is pulled out of suspension by Iceman, a former colleague and friend of the pilot who long ago completed his days in flight and rose to the rank of admiral.

Unsurprisingly, Iceman has a new mission for his old friend and colleague, at Top Gun Academy, not as a pilot but as a lecturer to a new generation of cadets who have less than a month to complete the almost impossible mission of crossing the canyon at too low an altitude. , fly up to 10G and return to base alive and well. For all those who may be wondering, why the American Air Force simply did not send drones on a mission of such insane predispositions, the film gives an answer in the style of Maverick, it is not up to the aircraft, it is up to the pilot.

Okay, now that we know the reason for the existence of this film (other than it will surely be a huge box-office nostalgia flick hit) what does the performance itself look like? This is a film that fans of the original work could only dream of. Although the time distance between the films is great, the action as such makes perfect sense. Maverick himself, although he did not experience too much character development between the two sequels, nevertheless consistently develops relationships and reacts with Iceman, Rooster and everyone else in the film. Each character is in its place, plays its specific role and the legacy of the one from the previous film is enhanced.

Outside of character, the film narratively maintains a good balance of action and action and what is particularly interesting is the level of predictability. After the first act, in which the figures agree on the way to the Top Gun Academy and the new mission, we have enough information to be able to predict all potential outcomes of the film and be ready for them, and yet the screenwriting team manages to surprise or distort our expectations. moments and others give a slightly less clichéd and uselessly emotional turn.

When it comes to directing, it is obvious that Kosinski approached the project with a lot of attention, love and respect and did not allow the final product to be influenced by trends. The introductory sequence of the film itself, truly belongs to a different time, because we follow Maverick in silence, without words of dialogue for over two minutes, because we do not fall into the action in the first 10-15 minutes, because simply, just like the first film and films from the 80s Top Gun: Maverick, simply gives himself room for respite, for simple secondary action, comic deviation, and slow progressive construction. From choosing music to framing decisions and selecting a warmer colour palette, it’s all there to emulate and enhance what’s set in the original film.

Bizarre as it may sound, Top Gun: Maverick is a film that really doesn't have much to complain about. It is a film that best describes itself with two lines of dialogue:

The end is inevitable Maverick. Your kind is heading to extinction.

Maybe so, sir, but not today.