Top Gun: Maverick: Neon NZ Review

Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly

Director: Joseph Kosinski

As narratively hollow as blockbusters come, but a spectacle like cinema has been crying out for for years, Top Gun: Maverick poses somewhat of a conundrum.

As a sequel to the 1986 film, it finds Cruise's Maverick swept up in the regrets of the past, while trying to take on the future. the future here being training a group of elite fighter pilots for a dangerous - and possibly suicidal - mission to destroy a nondescript nuclear threat, housed within a mountain.

He's training the elite of the elite - and included in their number is Rooster (Teller), the son of his former wingman Goose....

There's no denying that the plot isn't really the thing which propels Top Gun: Maverick along. Sure, it's a catalyst for endless scenes of broing and of planes in the sky, but it's got little flesh on it, and it's to the credit of those involved that there are some moments that truly land for this flick.

But it's also telling that a short sequence involving Val Kilmer's Iceman and Cruise's Maverick that packs more of the emotional heft than any of the moments which punctuate the continual feeling you are in an extended advert for the Royal Navy air force.

There's also a touch of Maverick being a relic of the past, with a drone programme shutting down his test ventures, and an antagonistic relationship between Cruise and Hamm's character that's reminiscent of Bruno Kirby and Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam - but all of these touches aren't really what the film's interested in pursuing.

There are moments of reflection, snippets of a past haunting Maverick - but it's roundly drowned out by chiselled jaws, toned bodies and aerial sequences. Talking of those, it's to Kosinski's credit that they are so kinetic, so thrilling and adrenaline-inducing that they're probably the sole raison d'etre for this film. Taking you inside the cockpit and getting you into the forefront of the action is immersive and engaging - and it's these sequences which pour some lifeblood into the film itself.

Cruise is reflective and as watchable as ever, inhabiting a skin that he's clearly relaxed in; of the rest of the cast, aside from a bit more depth to Teller and the aforementioned Kilmer cameo, there's little depth to be found. There's a younger more headstrong arrogant Top Gun pilot in the group who's clearly supposed to be the Maverick of the gang, a token female, a token newcomer to the group and some other hotheads who largely fade away into insignificance as the story goes on. Connelly is there to be alluring and little else, which feels like a waste in all honesty.

But at the centre of it all, thanks solely to the aerial scenes, there's a viscerally thrilling experience that cries out to be seen on the biggest screen possible. If 1986's Top Gun existed to sign people up, then this sequel clearly knows that it wants to do that again - it's just a crying shame that the story doesn't have a bit more depth to elevate it into the stratosphere.