Opinion: Why it’s important that ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ is so much better than the original

The text below contains spoilers for “Top Gun: Maverick”

“Top Gun: Maverick” could very well be the blockbuster of the year, thanks to a perfect storm of circumstances. It’s Memorial Day weekend in the US; people are feeling a little more adventurous; everyone needs an escape from the horrors of the real world; and… Tom Cruise.

Cruise, one of our last bona fide movie stars, is the one who allegedly insisted that this movie, filmed in 2019, not be released on a streaming platform. And damn, he was right.

This glorious blockbuster demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, and hold on to your popcorn, because real aerial stunts must be experienced in high definition to be believed. (The academic dean of the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics was seated behind me at our exhibition. His review: “Fantastic!”)

Most crucially, the film performs the highly complicated maneuver of bringing back all the adrenaline and bravura that made the first “Top Gun” such an indelible landmark in the 1980s, while uprooting some of its most toxic elements and (at least slightly) updating. your worldview.

As much as the fledgling, flying original was a product of its time, the delayed “Top Gun: Maverick” manages to be the perfect sequel for now – pondered with gloom and mortality, but still struggling for meaning and glory.

It might just be the first film since the start of the pandemic to really remind us of the sheer fun of an ordinary movie theater experience.

Now, I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve seen 1986’s “Top Gun,” but spoiler alert, it’s pretty dated: the late director Tony Scott’s fighter pilot saga embodies the male red-white-and-blue ethos. from the Reagan years, complete with a daredevil hero literally throwing the Russians.

Hilariously, there is no subtext in Scott’s film. The rogue protagonist is called Maverick. The protagonist’s rival and loyal to the rules is called Iceman (Val Kilmer). The goofy sidekick is Goose (Anthony Edwards). The boss who scolds people for violating protocol is Stinger (James Tolkan).

In a movie about a character with a deep disregard for authority, well, here’s some subtle dialogue:

Ice Man : “I don’t like you because you’re dangerous.”
Maverick : “That’s right, Iceman. I’m dangerous.”

The original “Top Gun” also manages to be one of the most (unintentionally?) homoerotic films of the decade, thanks to its sun-kissed beach volleyball scene and double-talk-speaking airline pilots.

The 1986 film is also full of eye-rolling sexism, from the way the Top Gun recruits laugh at Kelly McGillis’ Charlie when she discusses the security clearance with Maverick, to lines like Iceman, “Substitute sign is up.” in the women’s bathroom.”

It’s also the kind of movie where Maverick follows a woman into the bathroom and suggests that they have sex on the bench be seen as hot, not scary. I can’t speak for every woman, but this is the kind of thing that makes a girl feel like a movie wasn’t really made with her in mind.

Under the direction of Joseph Kosinski (“Oblivion”), Cruise’s older, frizzier Maverick seems to have grown and changed. He is still overwhelmed with grief over the death of his wingman, Goose and is feeling that his ability has diminished.

The teaching ambition he sparked at the end of the first film didn’t quite pan out. He doesn’t seem to have fared better romantically; perhaps the tactic of recruiting an entire bar to drunkenly sing along with the Righteous Brothers to win a love interest has not aged very well.

What separates “Top Gun: Maverick” from its sexist story is the embrace of a different kind of masculinity. The movie is an exploration of what it’s like to be incredibly good at one thing — yes, he’s still dangerous in the air! — although quite vulnerable in other areas.

One of the film’s many highlights is a short, emotional scene between Cruise and Kilmer as the now-ill Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky; the adversaries of yore forged a friendship in the following decades.

Jennifer Connelly steps in as Pete’s new love interest, bar owner Penny Benjamin, and if there’s one actress who really radiates that she doesn’t take anything, it’s Connelly.

Penny takes Pete sailing, only to discover that — despite being a Marine — he has no idea what the right rope is to sail the boat.

The movie even uses his real name many times – sometimes he’s a Maverick, but most of the time he’s just a Pete.

But don’t get it wrong: there’s no lack of action here. The new group of Top Gun recruits, whom Maverick is brought in by Iceman to teach about a super treacherous mission, are orderly and arrogant in all the best ways. But they’re not idiots about it, with the possible exception of “Hangman” (Glen Powell, in the Iceman model).

They are also a more diverse group, with a few non-white actors and a female pilot (Monica Barbaro) who has never been portrayed as belittling or harassed by her peers.

Importantly, the movie also goes to great lengths, which is quite exciting to watch, to show just how difficult it is to fly missions like this one: the crushing weight on your body as you soar straight up, the nerve-wracking adjacency until death.

“Top Gun: Maverick” is the latest project to tap into our nostalgia for action movies while updating, or directly poking fun at, dusty old stereotypes.

Sandra Bullock’s film “The Lost City” tweaked the “Romancing the Stone” formula with a charming performance by Channing Tatum as a male beta hero. And Peacock’s criminally underrated “MacGruber” series, spawned by the 2010 film, stars Will Forte in a perfect parody of obnoxious, rule-breaking action stars of the 1980s. heavily based on the sex scene from “Top Gun.”)

At its core, of course, “Top Gun: Maverick” is still tough on American exceptionalism, with the idea that being smug and difficult and breaking the rules is just part of patriotic heroism.

It is bellicose in a way that is nonetheless problematic: in what reality can the United States simply bomb another (unnamed) country’s uranium stores, even if it is suggestively implied that Russia is the global pariah?

There are some legitimate diplomatic concerns surrounding the film’s main plot point. While Cruise said he never thought of the original film as propaganda, the original film would have inspired an increase in military enlistment.

And, as Cruise said in a recent interview about “Top Gun: Maverick,” he and the rest of the cast and crew “worked with the Navy and the Top Gun school to formulate how to shoot in practice.” So it’s not a pro-military movie.

But mostly, honestly it’s two hours of pure visceral fun on the big screen, which feels very retro. The best way possible.