Sunday, March 12, 2023

Top Gun: Maveick

Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was his love letter to filmmaking.  Tarantino's style, which is partly an amalgamation of other filmmaker's work, is highly regarded by critics and fans, because we recognize his intent.  For Tarantino, imitation is the highest form of flattery, but it's never the purpose of his films, rather it is the jumping-off point for something completely his own.  In much the same way, director Joseph Kosinski and actor/producer Tom Cruise approach Top Gun: Maverick.  Kosinski and Cruise completely understand what made the first film resonate with its audience; it was the power of the fighter jets, it was the bravado of the pilots, it was the unashamed red-blooded Americanism, and it was the way that music can stimulate so many feelings that are impossible to express any other way.  Of course, knowing what's in the secret sauce doesn't make you a great chef.  Both Kosinski and Cruise bring a huge amount of talent, and Cruise brings an insane commitment to the role, which when combined with the secret sauce delivers what many, including myself thought would be impossible; a sequel to Top Gun that is as good, if not better, in just about every way.  In a certain sense, anyone who saw the original film, back in '86 or anytime thereafter can imagine what happened in the interim; we've all seen Tom Cruise's exploits in a wide range of films, and quite literally it is difficult to imagine that the character of Maverick ever would have stopped flying, or could ever have led a normal "grown-up" life.  Really, it's not surprising that Maverick is still the same guy, it's we who've grown up, had kids, taken up less dangerous pastimes, and given up on our dreams of being fighter pilots.  It seems to me that Kosinski and Cruise are fully aware that the audience views Maverick with a certain amount of jealousy, it's not fair that he's been having fun all these years that we've had to be growing up.  The filmmakers realize that there is a dangerous risk that our jealousy could morph into disdain, perhaps Maverick should have grown up too.  Wisely, Kosinski and Cruise head these feelings off at the pass, and are always a step ahead.  This is a far better approach then pretending that the audience's experiences and feelings won't come into play, and I suggest that the reason most  sequels fail to resonate with the audience is that the filmmakers don't recognize that their audience has changed.  One of my brothers mentioned that he was having a hard time taking the movie seriously, because the primary aerial attack sequence is basically the Death Star trench run from A New Hope.  As I mentioned before, Kosinski and Cruise took some notes from Tarantino's playbook, and they realize that a movie doesn't have to be completely original to be great, but it can't pretend to be completely original either.  In the case of Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski and Cruise embrace what is great about the past, and mix in just the right amount of different elements, to make it something completely new.  I realize that this review hasn't really spent much time describing what I liked about the new film, and that's because I hope that you'll take the time to find out for yourself.  My word of encouragement would be, don't be cynical when you see something that you've seen before, if you liked it the first time, what's so bad about seeing it again?

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