Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Top Gun: Maverick
2022
*****
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer

Pete "Maverick" Mitchell returns to TOPGUN to train an elite team of fighter pilots for a mission, which requires them to fly through a canyon in order to destroy an uranium enrichment plant. One member of the team brings up Maverick's past trauma. This belated sequel to Top Gun is a massive upgrade on the original and way more fun than it has any right to be. It's definitely a movie made for the big cinema screen. The story is gripping, the performances are strong, the obligatory romance feels believable, and the 100% real flight scenes are simply breathtaking. It makes several callbacks to the 1986 original, sometimes through music, other times through characters, and occasionally recreating scene for scene. Academy Award winner for best sound.