Tom Cruise and the road to ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Tom Cruise fever has caught the world by storm, following the mind-blowing and action-packed Top Gun: Maverick. So, we used it as an excuse to sit through hours of movies and look back at Cruise’s impressive forty year career. 

Previously we looked at Cruise’s breakout feature Risky Business from 1983, then A Few Good Men from 1992 and lastly 2002’s Minority Report. Each film was thematically different and showed a new aspect to Cruise as he has slowly evolved. 

Risky showed us the young, cocky, charming and naive golden boy. Good Men followed suit, but showed us he can also be determined and serious. Minority took it a step further and gave us a more mature Cruise. His character had past trauma and substance abuse issues, but also proved that he was an action man that was bred for the blockbuster. 

2022’s Top Gun: Maverick is even more evidence of that. Twenty years after Minority Report and at the ripe age of 59, Tom Cruise showed audience’s that he isn’t going down without a dogfight. 

“The studio wanted to make [a sequel] before the [first] film even opened,” said Cruise on BBC Radio. “And I was like ‘I’m not doing another one.’”

Well, lucky for us Cruise eventually changed his mind. Maverick is the sequel to the much beloved Top Gun of 1986, which also starred Cruise as the young, cocky golden boy that defined his youth. Nearly forty years on, Cruise has returned to play Peter ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, alongside original alumni Val Kilmer as Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky. 

Picking up decades after the first film, Maverick is still the thrill seeker who continues to defy expectations and the rules. But when a team of pilots are recruited to complete a near impossible mission, it is Maverick who must grow up and teach the pilots how to fly like never before. 

However, there is one small issue. One of the recruits, Rooster, is none other than the son of his best friend, and ex co-pilot Goose who tragically died in combat during the first film. Fearing losing him as well, Maverick pushed back his application for the Navy resulting in some significant unresolved tension. 

Alongside Cruise and Kilmer, Maverick stars Miles Teller as Goose, Glen Powell as Hangman, Monica Barbaro as Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly as Penny, Jon Hamm as Cyclone and a long list of other nicknames that could fill a book. 

If you’ve been living under a rock, you may be unaware of the extreme lengths Cruise and the rest of the cast and crew went through to achieve an authentic look. Maverick uses minimal CGI and trained its actors and various crew to pilot planes by condensing two years of training into three months. On paper this may seem excessive, especially considering the leaps in technology. But the results speak for themselves. 

Maverick changes what an audience can and should expect from an action film. Too much of the past decade or so has been dedicated to CGI snooze fests. Not that I’m saying I don’t enjoy a Marvel marathon, but there is a reason they can churn out four movies and five series in a year. 

Check out this clip from Top Gun: Maverick

Maverick is a prime example of the next stage of Cruise’s aesthetic. It is only in his most recent films that it seems Cruise has been willing to acknowledge he is getting older. This admittance is refreshing and we get to witness someone who is not cocky because he thinks he has seen it all, but is cocky because he has seen it all. Nearly. Though he continues to defy gravity and charm the ladies, even the film is aware of this and makes fun of the fact we are seeing a near 60yr old man jump from a roof like he were a teenager. 

This brings me to Penny. One thing I couldn’t quite accept was the obvious substitution in the romantic interest. In the first film, it is Maverick and Kelly McGillis’ Charlie that have this compelling forbidden love. However, Charlie is nowhere to be seen (nor do I believe she is acknowledged) in the new film and it instead attempts to convince us that Penny is a character he has had a romantic history with. What Connelly manages to do with Penny is passable considering. But regardless, my feelings towards the romantic aspects of the plot are similar to that of Mission: Impossible – Fallout from 2016: It’s not why I’m here, but I’ll sit through it. 

A relationship that does work impeccably though is the one between Mav and Rooster. Without spoiling too much, their initial place is essentially that of a distant father/son relationship that turned sour. But as the most novice of movie goers would expect, through trials and tribulations their relationship authentically grows and the climax of it is overwhelmingly effective. 

It would be amiss of me not to highlight the fantastic soundtrack. Kenny Loggins’ track ‘Dangerzone’ became a famous pairing with the original film and Maverick attempts to replicate this iconic chemistry. Though Lady GaGa’s ‘Hold My Hand’ hasn’t received the same attention, it is OneRepublic’s ‘I Ain’t Worried’ that has made it onto everybody’s morning playlist. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe’s orchestral soundtrack manages to perfectly merge the original’s sounds and motifs with the epic and bold modern works that they are both known for. 

Check out the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick

And that brings us up to date on the wild ride that is the career of Tom Cruise! His latest string of films could lead you to believe he is bathing in his youth or doing a victory lap. However, I believe it could be more simple than that. From observing these films and my other research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Cruise just loves the work. He is passionate about films and storytelling, nearly to a fault. But I can’t imagine Cruise slowing down until his body forces him to. 

So, after observing all these movies. Which is his best performance? Is it Jerry Maguire? John Anderton? Ethan Hunt?

No. We all know it’s Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder. I was just teasing you. 

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