Top Gun: Maverick was as close as you get to a pure 80's adrenaline movie as you can get in today's woke society and still be good. The movie picks up with Maverick still doing his thing, out in some desert test flying the latest and greatest jets for the military. We are quickly filled in that with his length of time, he should already be a general or a senator, but because he doesn't follow the rules, all he can do is be a fighter pilot, in a world where we are quickly moving to relying on drones to do the dirty work. The company he is working with is about to be shut down because the asshole in charge is obsessed with drones and has given them an unreasonable timeline to reach Mach10, Maverick being the guy that he is, wills it out of his jet, and then some. He doesn't do it for himself, but for the good of others, that is always his MO. He is always doing heroic things for the good of his team, and somehow the powers that be never appreciate it.
He ends up in trouble, but we learn that Iceman has been saving his ass for the last 30 years, Val Kilmer has a touching scene, it made the movie that much better. He then finds himself on the old set of the original Top Gun with the best of the best woke edition. There is of course, a hot shot female pilot, who needs to be at the center of attention in all the scenes, pretty girl, but I just can't buy the reality, although looking through Google, there have been a handful. There were also of course a lot more minorities, blacks and Hispanics, flying around and shooting the shit with the best of them. They did not force the wokeness on us, in the end, I gave that part of the film a pass.
The action and the jets were everything, there was a mission defined and only the older jets, Maverick's specialty could get the job done, plenty of training montages, then the actual operation, everything we want in a summer blockbuster. There is another level to the movie, as Goose's son, Rooster, is now a Top Gun recruit, even if the kid was about 5 in the original and this is set 30 years later, that means the kid would be 35, starting to get a little old, but then again, Tom Cruise has to be in his 60's. The energy of the Top Gun pilots hits more around 25, all testosterone and bravado. Then again, this is what you want in your "best of the best", I don't want some cowardly nice types in this group. Rooster and Maverick have to square away some tension which adds to the movie's weird vibe and energy of "will they, won't they?" get along. I'm not giving away any of the ending, but the movie was what you would want to see on a 4th of July weekend.
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