In January 2-years ago I came up with the idea of adding movie reviews to the blog, and in March 2-years ago I wrote a movie review. Having since created a dedicated user account for movie reviews some time later, I figured it was about time in March 2023 to start trying to write a few more reviews to pop on the blog.
After many years of anticipation, in May 2022 the “Top Gun 2” movie, better known as “Top Gun: Maverick” was finally launched, and smashed it out of the ballpark.
Not long after it was released to digital download, and later to DVD/Blu-Ray, and I got hold of a copy for £13.99 from iTunes UK at the end of September 2022, and finally found time on 6th October to watch the whole 2hrs 11minutes of it.
The movie starts much like the first Top Gun movie, with shots of aircraft taking off and landing on a US Navy Aircraft Carrier. Naturally updated to include the F-18 Hornet and F-35 Lighting II.
It then cuts to Pete “Maverick” Mitchell getting up to go to work somewhere in the California/Nevada desert as the pilot of a top secret hyper-sonic jet aircraft, where he learns the program has been sh*t-canned in favour of drones.
Maverick then goes ahead flying the aircraft anyway to prove it can crack the speed it was designed to do before a senior admiral comes to the base to officially scrap the project.
He is successful in his attempt, but destroys the aircraft in the process by pushing it past it’s limit.
After he has been recovered, Maverick then has to appear before the Admiral to receive a bollocking, only to be told to pack his sh*t because he has been recalled to Top Gun to help train a group of past graduates for a top secret mission.
The movie then cuts to scenes from around the city of San Diego in Southern California at around Sunset for some throw-back like scenes of Maverick riding around on his motorbike, before going to report for duty and find out why he’s needed back at the Top Gun academy.
Afterwards he winds up at a bar, which turns out to be run by his on-off former girlfriend named Penny Benjamin (aka “the admirals daughter” mentioned in the first movie as an incident where he got a slap on the wrist for showing off in a jet).
At the end of this scene he gets thrown out of the bar on his ass by a group of pilots due to problems funding buying a round of drinks.
Next morning at just before 34-minutes into the movie, the Top Gun pilots report for mission training, and get a bit of a surprise when they find out who Maverick is when he walks into the hangar to brief them.
From just before 36-minutes into the Top Gun movie, it fully gets going with Maverick and the other pilots finally up in the air together to test out their dogfighting skills, to the backing music of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by legendary rock band “The Who”.
The movie gets to the actual mission from around 1hr 27minutes, and is worth the wait.
Everything after about 2hrs 1minute 41seconds is the closing titles.
Overall the movie lives up to the hype, and is one of the few movies created in recent years worth spending money on to obtain a permanent copy to add to your collection. Big improvement on the original, and a mixture of action + smoochy stuff.
10+/10 Rating
