“Top Gun: Maverick” and My Tom Cruise Problem

What a load of sap that was!

I’ll cut to the chase; Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise and that’s fine. He is in many ways something of a lingering echo of a bygone Hollywood. I’ll return to more thoughts about Tom later. Let’s take a quick look at another movie in the running for Best Picture.

Is it bad that, out of the gate, I started laughing? The first notes of “Danger Zone” and I was dying to see a cameo by Sterling Archer. Having said that, though, a lot of the grinning I did do was based on a kind of fondness for watching a film that accomplished what it set out to do. In this regard,  “Top Gun: Maverick” is not so very different from “Cocaine Bear.”

It is, by turns, rousing, and by other turns, actually kind of touching. Let me be clear: I did not like “Top Gun”; I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated it, but I didn’t like it. Tony Scott’s opus was peak Reagan Era militaristic, jingo-ridden bullshit with the barest sketches of characters populating a vapid, arid plot full of flabby dialog and a near-inert by-the-numbers plot. Cool cinematography and semi-bitchin’ soundtrack aside, I walked out underwhelmed. 

Joseph Kosinski’s look at Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell almost forty years later is a more solid flick. By now, we have grown accustomed to Cruise and for some of us, his limitations as an actor. Fortunately, he has learned to tone down his “charm” and actually seems to listen to his scene partners. I am also grateful that he’s lost that stupid smirk that was his trademark for what seemed an eternity. 

Cruise turns in a creditable performance and the script is knowing enough to play into the absurdity of the myth that is Maverick. The screenplay is handled by three guys who know their way around the cinematic blockbuster block in Ehren Kruger (the American version of “The Ring”, the recent and unnecessary “Dumbo” remake, and “Arlington Road”), Eric Warren Singer (“American Hustle”, and “The International” which I wasn’t crazy about, but it moved), and of course, Christopher McQuarrie, the man with the Midas touch behind “The Usual Suspects”, “Valkyrie” and other T-Cruise properties - “Jack Reacher”, “Edge of Tomorrow”, and the past couple of “Mission Impossible” entries) and it’s a tight, fleet piece of work. 

It more than helps that Jennifer Connelly is back as Penny, reminding us of what a fab actress she is. Her scene work with Cruise is genuinely touching; there is a natural chemistry between them and it’s here that Cruise actually seems to be comfortable, for a change, sharing the screen with a romantic interest. Jon Hamm and Charles Parnell are on hand to play the by-the-books officers in command of the mission (bombing a site that is enriching uranium, flouting a multilateral agreement…in a country that is unnamed; make of that what you will but let’s just say that maybe the political landscape has changed and the showrunners are less concerned about the Maguffin than making any statement one way or another). 

Kosinski brought Miles Teller on-board (they previously worked together on “Only the Brave” and “Spiderhead”) and for good effect. I like Teller well enough but here he really nails Rooster, son of Anthony Edwards’ Goose who died in the prior film. He’s one of the younger recruits whose principle rival, Hangman (a swell Glen Powell, who killed it in “Devotion” and does an even better job here) is vying for mission leader. Bashir Salahuddin does a swell turn as Maverick’s main assistant. And I have to admit, it was kind of nice to see Val Kilmer return as now-Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. 

A recap is pretty straightforward. Maverick and his team are due to test a jet developed to fly at Mach 10 speeds but the program is being shut down by Ed Harris’s General Chester “Hammer” Cain. Rear admiral, excuse me. Cain is coming to personally to shut the mission down since he’s appropriating funding for unmanned flights (and relieve Maverick of his duties, of course.) Naturally, Maverick successfully flies the jet, and instead of being tossed to the wind, is tasked with leading a team of Top Gun pilots on what appears to be a suicide mission. So far, so by the playbook of a century’s worth of flying dramas. Of course (there will be more of these, sorry, but so much is of course here), he was chosen for the mission by Iceman, who’s been protecting him throughout his career since, well, 1986, I guess? 

Anyway, the recruits include Rooster who harbors extreme resentment against Maverick for scotching Rooster’s career i the Navy (at his mother’s request; she lost Goose and didn’t want to lose her son). We find out that Maverick attempted to be the dad Rooster never knew and so on and so forth. There are character moments on the way to the big mission (of course! See?); team-building with a shirtless football game (yes, yes, very much a callback to the volleyball game; one of the most subversive moments in any major American picture); Penny raking Maverick over proverbial/metaphorical coals early on by getting him to buy rounds for everyone at The Hard Deck bar that she now owns; Maverick and Penny rekindling their feelings for each other (again, “of course”); the death of a pilot (o.c.); Maverick’s dismissal for not being able to get the team up to speed and his subsequent return to duty when he proves his point that the mission is doable (altogether now: “of course!”; telling Penny that he was now appointed mission leader and might die; the choice of Rooster as his wingman (over Hangman, for bonding/teaching reasons); the actual mission; Maverick and Rooster finishing the mission successfully (yes, yes, OF COURSE); Hangman saving them from an enemy pilot; accolades for all and a job well done and Rooster and Maverick bonding further and Maverick and Penny flying off into the future. 

There’s little to add I actually wanted to write this out because I have a feeling I am going to forget this movie sooner than later. Honestly, it’s not a bad movie; it’s actually entertaining, touching in parts (Iceman dies from the cancer that returned that somehow Maverick wasn’t aware of), and fine, just fine. Really! I even liked it.

Best Picture material? Aw, hell no. But it’s Cruise and did phenomenal box-office and has been lauded for single handedly putting seats in theaters post-Covid. Uh, the MCU and James Cameron may have some thoughts about this. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I don’t put a lot of stock in the Oscars, but I enjoy the pomp, circumstance, and attendant silliness and I am, most assuredly, going to push out further thoughts about the little gold man later.

My Tom Cruise Problem

I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but in the fairness of full disclosure, I have misgivings about Cruise that go beyond his film work. As an actor, he is fine in the right roles. As I alluded to (kind of), he’s a movie star, more than an actor. He doesn’t quite tank a movie if he’s in it (most of the time), but he’s just not an interesting performer (there are exceptions; “Eyes Wide Shut”, “Rain Man”, “Born on the Fourth of July”, “Vanilla Sky”…his turns in “Magnolia” and “Tropic Thunder” showed him trying to stretch), but honestly, I have the hardest time remembering much of his “vehicles”particularly (especially?) the Mission Impossible films. “Valkyrie” isn’t bad, “The Last Samurai” I’ve forgotten. “Edge of Tomorrow” is also fine. But his performances have a sameness that often fades into bland. At best, you know what you’re going to get.

His screen presence aside, I hold his affiliation to the Church of Scientology suspect and while the stories about his remembering everyone’s names on sets, sending thoughtful gifts to co-stars, and how lovely he is to his fans, all I can think is that he’s something of a cypher on the one hand (there is little inferiority to any of his performances and his best role is “Tom Cruise”) and on the other, I wonder if there isn’t some sense of need to be accepted and liked? He has to be aware of that the more problematic aspects of his life have colored perceptions of him in the industry. His tantrums and sometimes erratic behavior have been well publicized, and honestly, none of this colors my judgement of his acting. 

I simply find his work at a kind of journeyman level. Sure, he’s an ace cinema actor - again, within parameters that he can handle, but it irks me when he’s lauded as much more than that. All of this is my problem, and I recognize that, but I also want to put this out there so I don’t have to repeat myself and have something to link to. I can pretty much guarantee this will come up again in the future.

Anyway, enjoy “Top Gun: Maverick”. I did. No reason why anyone shouldn’t.

Click here for my Oscar Post-Mortem.