96% on Rotten Tomatoes. $1.5 billion box office. 6 Oscar nominations. Yes, I finally watched Top Gun: Maverick today (mainly because it was free for me!). This isn't so much a question of whether the film was good or not, rather how good the film was. And yes, it was good. Not Oscar Best Picture good (a ridiculous nomination), but normal good. A fun, loud, stupid cinematic spectacle. In fact, I wish I'd actually seen this on a big IMAX screen - no doubt accompanied by the whooping and hollering and USA chants of an American audience. Yes, it is corny as hell. Yes, it was just a big ego trip for Tom Cruise. Yes, it is not really dissimilar to the first film. But I found it surprisingly emotional, which I wasn't expecting. Perhaps that was nostalgia? Which wouldn't be a surprise, given the vast number of callbacks to the first Top Gun film. And just like that one, the actual footage from the planes is amazing. It's Metacritic score was 78%, and that feels about right to me - 3.75 stars.
I concur. Good but not Great.
ReplyDeleteI found it much better than the original (which I dislike intensely - WAY too cheesy)