Cannes 2022 welcomes Tom Cruise, eternal Top Gun, with open arms

The Cannes Film Festival comes alive with the film and actor who most represent Hollywood. If the protagonist of the first day was the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in video connection, on the second day everything is focused on cinema, which has regained its space with the out of competition Top Gun: Maverick by Joseph Kosinski, sequel to the historian Top Gun of 1986. The absolute protagonist is Tom Cruise (60 years on 3 July) who, before the screening, received the Palme d’Or in recognition of a career full of successes.

In the new film, which will be in theaters from May 25, Cruise is still Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, captain, struggling with a love from the past (Jennifer Connelly) and a group of young pilots, including “Rooster” (Miles Teller) , son of the unforgettable friend of one time, “Goose”, who died in the first film.

The actor had arrived in Cannes in the morning by helicopter for one masterclass that sold out. No press conference or interview, because that of the star in France was a hit and run: already in the evening he flew to London, where he was expected at the London preview of the film, in the presence of William and Kate. Cruise, in fact, is involved in the celebrations of the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth.

To all those who came to the masterclass in the early afternoon, and there were more than a thousand, he spoke with passion: “Cinema is my love. I grew up with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and the cinema since I was 4 I wanted to make movies. It has been an interesting journey, I started as a young man and I did everything to be able to do it for the rest of my life. I tried to study and learn to have skills in all aspects of the machine: editing, screenplay, direction“. The darkness of the room is vital for him: “First of all, I remain a spectator. I put on my hat and go incognito to the cinema, I sit in the audience, I want to see everything and try to understand how far this art form can go “. For this, after years of postponements, she wanted Top Gun: Maverick at the cinema and not on the platforms: “I called my talented actors and told them don’t worry and then I went to theaters, I talked to those who were selling popcorn and were at the cashier I said:” We are preparing Mission Impossible, there are so many other films to see on the big screen. Do not worry”.

The actor who also wants to be a stunt man is so perfectionist that he wanted 6 IMAX quality cameras inside the fighter plane cockpit to film the actors while they were actually in the air. He hadn’t returned to Cannes for 30 years and Cannes wanted to celebrate it, giving him career recognition and a surprise tribute: while Cruise was on the red carpet in the company of colleagues Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell and Miles Teller and director Joseph Kosinski, an aerobatic formation of the French aviation, with trails of the colors of the national flag, darted over his head.

This Cannes edition welcomed star Tom Cruise with open arms: standing ovation everywhere, a career award, many admirers. And then the homage of the French aviation. There is little doubt that the latter, however, may have been the most welcome gift.