Top Gun: Maverick Review – Tom Cruise Proves the Blockbuster Still Has Wings

Pete Mitchell hasn't changed as much as the Navy might have hoped.

Decades after graduating from Top Gun, Maverick remains a captain while many of his contemporaries have climbed the ranks. He is still testing aircraft, challenging authority and seemingly doing everything possible to avoid the desk job that would finally bring his flying days to an end.

But the Maverick we meet here isn't simply the reckless pilot from 1986.

He knows time is catching up.

When he's ordered back to Top Gun to train a group of elite graduates for an extraordinarily dangerous mission, Maverick finds himself facing something far more difficult than another high-speed flight: responsibility for the lives of younger pilots.

Among them is Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Maverick's late best friend Goose.

Suddenly, the past isn't something Maverick can outrun.

Tom Cruise has spent much of his career throwing himself out of aircraft, climbing skyscrapers, and finding increasingly elaborate ways to convince audiences that movie stars really can be indestructible.

But Top Gun: Maverick works because Cruise allows Maverick to feel mortal.

There's still plenty of the familiar swagger. Put him inside a cockpit, and Maverick remains convinced he's the best pilot in the room.

Outside it, things are different.

Cruise plays him as a man who's spent decades holding onto the one thing he understands, because moving forward would mean confronting everything he's lost.

That gives the film an emotional weight the original never quite reached.

Miles Teller's Rooster could easily have existed purely as a reminder of Goose.

Instead, he becomes one of the film's strongest characters.

Rooster doesn't see Maverick as the legendary pilot everyone else talks about. He sees the man he believes interfered with his career and kept him from following in his father's footsteps.

That resentment creates real tension in their relationship.

Maverick wants desperately to protect Goose's son, but protecting Rooster forever would also prevent him from becoming the pilot he's capable of being.

Their relationship gradually becomes the movie's emotional centre, and when the mission finally begins, all that history suddenly matters.

This is where Top Gun: Maverick separates itself from most modern blockbusters.

The aerial sequences feel dangerous because so much of what we're watching feels tangible.

Actors were trained to withstand the physical demands of filming inside aircraft, and cameras were positioned to capture their reactions during flight. The result is an immediacy that would have been difficult to reproduce entirely on a soundstage.

You feel the acceleration.

You feel the strain.

And when aircraft tear through narrow valleys at terrifying speeds, the geography of the action remains remarkably clear.

Joseph Kosinski doesn't bury the sequences beneath frantic editing. He lets the audience understand where everyone is, what they need to accomplish and exactly what happens if they fail.

By the final mission, the tension is enormous.

Yes, Top Gun: Maverick knows you want certain things.

The motorcycle is back.

The aviator sunglasses are back.

The film callbacks to familiar moments and music from the original.

But most of them have a purpose beyond simply reminding audiences of 1986.

Even the new pilots reflect the competitive atmosphere of the original Top Gun without feeling like carbon copies of Maverick and Iceman.

Glen Powell is particularly entertaining as Hangman, the supremely confident pilot who walks into almost every room wearing the expression of someone who has already decided he's better than everyone else.

Sound familiar?

The clever part is that Maverick is now standing on the other side, watching a new generation make many of the same mistakes he once made.

Of all the connections to the original movie, the return of Val Kilmer as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky is easily the most affecting.

Maverick and Iceman began as rivals, but decades later their relationship has become something much deeper.

Iceman understands Maverick in a way few others do.

Their scene together isn't there simply so audiences can applaud the return of another familiar character. It forces Maverick to confront his fear of losing Rooster in the same way he lost Goose.

It's quiet, restrained, and surprisingly moving.

For a movie sold partly on jets travelling at ridiculous speeds, one of its most memorable scenes involves two old friends sitting together in a room.

The final act is pure blockbuster filmmaking.

Everything established earlier — Maverick's relationship with Rooster, the rivalry between the pilots, the seemingly impossible training requirements and Maverick's inability to let go of the past — converges during the mission.

And the film keeps finding another gear.

What begins as a tense military operation develops into an exhilarating sequence that stays exciting, emotional, and occasionally very funny without losing control of its tone.

By the time the credits arrive, Top Gun: Maverick has accomplished something remarkably difficult.

It has honoured Top Gun without being trapped by it.