'Top Gun: Maverick' Once Again Has Tom Cruise Risking Life and Limb For Our Entertainment
The Top Gun: Maverick trailer is really kind of refreshing, right? When you see a fighter plane in an action movie these days, it's likely being summoned via gauntlet by a Marvel villain to smash into a superhero of some sort. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a dude with great hair pull a couple Gs and scream: “Woo!”
That said, a lot has changed since the original Top Gun debuted in 1986. Here’s what you can expect for Maverick’s return to the skies.
What’s it about?
Judging by yesterday’s trailer, it looks like our friend Maverick is up to the same ol’ shit. He’s been flying for over 30 years now, and is still the same smartass we loved in the eighties—and that’s apparently what kept him from climbing the ranks. The plot details are pretty scarce—the trailer’s all greatest hits, featuring six-packs, barroom singing, and aviators—but it seems like it’ll be a one-last-fight kind of deal, with Maverick being an instructor now. Ed Harris’s character warns Maverick, “your kind is headed for extinction,” to which the pilot cracks, “Maybe so sir, but not today.”
“Aviators are back, the need for speed. We’re going to have big, fast machines. It’s going to be a competition film, like the first one, but a progression for Maverick,” Cruise told Access Hollywood early in production. Judging by the Ed Harris quote in the trailer it appears that Maverick and the other pilots are going through a time of reckoning in an age of drone warfare.
Aside from that, thankfully, director Joseph Kosinski (who’s no stranger to the franchise reboot game, having directed Tron: Legacy) seems to have a full grasp on the full-throttled, upside-down visual style that made Top Gun so unique. Make sure you pregame the sequel with a Zofran.
Who’s coming back for the sequel, and who are the new pilots?
Top Gun: Maverick will see the return of the original’s main two players—Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and Val Kilmer reprising Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. The sequel will also pull the Creed move of featuring a departed character’s son, with Miles Teller playing the child of Nick “Goose” Bradshaw. As for the rest of the cast, it’s a whole pile of cool pilots with cooler nicknames, including Monica Barbaro as Phoenix and Manny Jacinto as Fritz. Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris, and Jennifer Connelly round out the rest of the big names.
Is this a CGI-everything jam now that we’re living in the age of CATS and Sonic?
Praise Old Deuteronomy, hell no. This is Tom-effing-Cruise we’re talking about, the guy who slammed into a wall while leaping between platforms filming Mission Impossible 6. When he introduced the trailer at Comic-Con yesterday, Cruise said, “Everything you see here is for real.”
This week, Miles talked to The Wrap about keeping up with Cruise’s leave-no-stunt-undone game. He said: “I’m certainly trying, but it is difficult,” adding, “Just the volume of it. I’m sure a lot of people can do it for a couple days or a week, but can you do it month after month after month? There’s been nothing on this film that didn’t take a lot of training to accomplish.”
Looks like Cruise has everyone feeling the need this time around. Top Gun 2: Maverick is out June 26, 2020.
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