Nostalgia as escapism is ubiquitous. But what if nostalgia could be a force for good? Not an inelegant poke in the dopamine receptors, but rather, transcendent, even galvanizing, as it is in the case of Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” a legacy sequel that that allows the viewer to luxuriate in the glorious aura of the original “Top Gun,” while simultaneously reckoning with what Tom Cruise, The Last Great Movie Star, might mean after all these years.
Tony Scott’s 1986 “Top Gun” is a visceral experience: all sweat, Venetian blinds, power ballads, roaring jet engines and sunset silhouettes. Tom Cruise, in the role that made him an action star, drips with charisma as the unbearably cocky Navy fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a character that we like, begrudgingly, because the irrepressibly charming Goose (Anthony Edwards) likes him. He walks, talks and flies like he’s got something to prove.
In “Top Gun: Maverick,” written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie, with a story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks, Maverick still has a mind of his own, and still doesn’t mind the hard deck, but he’s softened over the years, like a leather jacket that’s been beaten up, faded and wrinkled, and just might be cooler now that it’s vintage. Maverick’s still flying like he’s got something to prove, this time, his own relevance, and one can’t help but compare that to Cruise himself. In the same way that Maverick has to prove that fighter pilots are still necessary in a world of drones and robots, Cruise has set himself the task of proving that movie stars, and indeed the theatrical moviegoing experience, are still necessary.
