Top Gun Review

By Paul Anthony

Next month Top Gun 2 is coming out and I am planning on seeing it, but something occurred to me and that was that I never got to watch the first film and well I have a free moment in the schedule, I wanted to take a day to review this film. Now last few days, I had to think about this because I feel like there are two Tom Cruises. The young Tom and the older Tom, now the older Tom takes movies and make it about him, as to where younger Tom was just a movie star in the 80’s. This film was released in May of 1986 and starred a good cast which included Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Tim Robbins, and Kelly McGillis. Now this film was produced from a 15 million and managed to make a 357 million dollars. Now In 2015 the United States Library of Congress selected the film the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, because it found it to be culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. The film also won an academy award for best original song for Take My Breath Away which was performed by Berlin. Now before most critics gave this film mixed reviews but praised the performance of Cruise and McGillis. Now Let’s start talking about the plot.

Here in this film, we LT Pete Mitchell AKA Maverick, and his Radar Intercept Officer Nick Bradshaw AKA Goose right off the bat we see Maverick as a cocky but talented fighter pilot but during one mission him and goose and their wingman Cougar have a mission, but Cougar basically chokes, and Maverick saves the day, but Cougar gives up his wings which opens the door for Maverick and Goose to join the TopGun program. Once there, Maverick becomes loved and hated but mostly hated by Tom “Iceman” Kazansky who is the top student of the program. Through the film, we see Maverick fall for TopGun Civilian Instructor, and they develop feelings for each other, at the same time Maverick forms a rival with Iceman and each compete for the top spot until one day an accident happens when Maverick gets in Iceman jet wash and flames out but during the ejection a malfunction happens, and goose hits his head hard and killing him and Maverick is cleared of any wrongdoing but nevertheless he feels the guilt of losing his best friend. Maverick does graduate from the program but doesn’t win the award for the best but shortly after graduating they given a mission which Maverick serves as Iceman wingman. However, during the mission Iceman and Hollywood which is another top pilot are ambushed and Maverick is sent to help at first, he seems like Hes going to abandon the mission but, in the end, saves the day as an award maverick can select his next location and job and he decides to become an instructor for the TopGun program.

Now, we have a young tom cruise which back than he wasn’t making movies that were all him. Which help each character shine in their own right. IceMan Val Kimer took each scene that he was in and he made people know that. Though his screen time wasn’t as much as Tom’s he still took the spotlight when he was on the screen. The story was basic because you knew right off the bat that Maverick in the end was going to come through. Lost of Goose midway through the film was a good touch because it gave us a chance to see how close these characters were. The jet’s were the main source of action and it was a thing of beauty to watch them. The problem is for me, we could have had more jet fighting rather than the love story aspect. Don’t me wrong the movie needed emotions but the love story was a waste when they could have gave us more Goose and Maverick. In the end I am giving this film a B or 80 percent. Its above average but not great!

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