Top Gun: Maverick spoiler-free review: A worthy return to the danger zone

As I walked out of my assessment screening of High Gun: Maverick, coming down from its adrenaline-filled finale, a small a part of my mind started searching for dents within the movie’s armor. Perhaps it is the critic in me, however my ideas did not want lengthy to land on stuff from the unique movie—a plot level, a stylistic selection, a specific character—that did not return this time.

I chewed on these ideas for a second, however earlier than I might lose myself in cataloging them at size, a sensation came visiting me. It landed like a large G-force blast, as if I have been a jet fighter pilot making an attempt a seemingly unattainable climb: one in all nice satisfaction with this sequel and admiration that this movie pulled off the unattainable feat of adhering to the previous whereas doing one thing new.

The sequence’ predilection for steering army theater towards Hollywood-style silliness is arguably extra tolerable, as tempered by a savvy script and cutting-edge stunt work. The character growth hits necessary notes for each Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and the folks in his high-speed orbit, and the movie’s targeted supporting forged largely hits the mark.

Maybe most necessary of all, an aging-yet-excited Tom Cruise by no means steps past his pay grade. The High Gun star of roughly 35 years in the past dominated film theaters for various causes than the person he’s as we speak, but this movie by no means sees his character Maverick betray his beloved traits or really feel like an previous man faking like a 20-something hotshot.

Just a few of the sequence’ shifting components have been jettisoned so a few years later, and lifelong followers of the movie will certainly discover them. However High Gun‘s core tenets—unbelievable fighter-jet fight, satisfying cheese, and the big-grin smile of Cruise—have returned in arguably finer type than the unique.

“Don’t assume, simply do”

High Gun: Maverick has the additional advantage of trying unbelievable on a big display, and it is maybe the very best IMAX format showcase of the previous 5 years. Cruise and co. have been clearly desperate to take cinematic air fight to the subsequent stage, and there is no getting round it: If you must sew three hospital-grade masks collectively or lease out a personal room to really feel snug in a public movie show in 2022, you must contemplate doing so for this movie.

Each main flight scene consists of per-cockpit digital camera rigs that emphasize the added peak of IMAX’s 16:10 ratio, and in these moments, flying is choreographed to let this digital camera angle showcase High Gun-caliber stuff. You may see one other aircraft in view, or vapor trails, or dumped flares dancing and billowing smoke, or a glancing shadow of the jet in opposition to the Earth’s floor as a result of the F/A-18 Hornet is truly flying that freaking low in actual life. In these moments, the actors do not hesitate to blow up with emotion, whether or not shrinking again or splashing their palms on the cockpit glass that extends throughout the whole IMAX display.

High Gun: Maverick spends quite a lot of time on this perspective, so it is good to see the stunt groups and cinematographers repeatedly strike a sizzling seaside volleyball high-five over this collaboration. But the crew additionally makes up for misplaced time for the reason that first movie was made by letting exterior cameras, together with expertly staged drones, linger over death-defying flight sequences or use wide-angle photographs to point out how foolishly shut its stunt flyers zip previous one another. The 1986 type of exhausting digital camera cuts to sew collectively a shot-down bogey are performed. This time, we get to observe full dogfights that lead as much as every climactic kaboom.

Actually, the lengths to which this movie goes to favor real-life stunts over green-screen trickery is unbelievable. Everybody may have a distinct favourite on this entrance, however mine is a dramatic fly-by considerably early within the movie that I will not spoil for you, besides to say that it was reportedly filmed with actors taking the real-life brunt of its buzz. You may comprehend it (and really feel it) if you see it.

My solely shoulder-shrug concerning the air-combat content material comes from a number of CGI-filled briefings. In every of those, commanding officers level at holograms and break down every step of a mission or train—as if Cruise insisted that this movie resemble the Mission: Not possible sequence in a method or one other. Whereas these moments are tolerable, I felt they have been clarification overkill that took time away from getting the movie’s cameras up into the danged skies.