Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is a hot shot super jet pilot in waiting. Trouble is is that he has a disregard for authority and carries around a family burden into the bargain. Selected for training at the Top Gun school in San Diego, Mitchell must harness his ability and realise his dreams, or else face the consequence.
Top Gun is a golden film, why you ask? Well it's one of those oddities that most people know is actually not very good in substance, yet it amazingly stands up as a secretly closeted treasure from an enigmatic cinematic time. Top Gun can probably lay claim to being the definition of the 80s pop picture, blaring music coupled with tremendous action sequences are oddly offset by the formulaic sub-plots happening down on the Top Gun floor. Yes the film has no substance, but director Tony Scott and scallywag producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer merged a number of crowd pleasing elements to create a box office smash, and in the process launch one time poster boy Tom Cruise into the stratosphere of super stardom.
We have a military setting, daring do training programme, buff bodies for those of any sexual persuasion, competitive edginess, and of course the obligatory love interest romance that here is as unlikely as it is actually forced. Tho to be fair to both Cruise {great and cocky} and Kelly McGillis {miscast and poor}, their love scenes are tender and comfortably raising the pulse beat in 80s cinema sensuality. Much macho posturing drips from every other frame, be it Cruise tearing around on his motorcycle or Val Kilmer {Iceman} pumping out his bare chest and smirking away. It could be said that Top Gun is an advertisement for the homo-erotic army! Yet in spite of its obvious daftness, Top Gun is very much a thrill ride. Disengage yourself from the preposterous nature of events out of the sky, and it royally entertains as an action picture of worth. Zooming jet sequences and sparky man to man beefcake exchanges more than make this a worthy revisit, especially now in this HD and booming home cinema age.
It's not great for sure, and anyone really proclaiming it to be as such has been having MTV filtered into their brains for the last 20 years. But it is an entertaining film, and the people involved with it knew exactly what they was doing, and when one looks at the ream of poor imitations that have followed over the years? Well Top Gun actually holds up as one of the most quintessential 80s pictures ever made....for better or worse? 7/10
Top Gun is a golden film, why you ask? Well it's one of those oddities that most people know is actually not very good in substance, yet it amazingly stands up as a secretly closeted treasure from an enigmatic cinematic time. Top Gun can probably lay claim to being the definition of the 80s pop picture, blaring music coupled with tremendous action sequences are oddly offset by the formulaic sub-plots happening down on the Top Gun floor. Yes the film has no substance, but director Tony Scott and scallywag producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer merged a number of crowd pleasing elements to create a box office smash, and in the process launch one time poster boy Tom Cruise into the stratosphere of super stardom.
We have a military setting, daring do training programme, buff bodies for those of any sexual persuasion, competitive edginess, and of course the obligatory love interest romance that here is as unlikely as it is actually forced. Tho to be fair to both Cruise {great and cocky} and Kelly McGillis {miscast and poor}, their love scenes are tender and comfortably raising the pulse beat in 80s cinema sensuality. Much macho posturing drips from every other frame, be it Cruise tearing around on his motorcycle or Val Kilmer {Iceman} pumping out his bare chest and smirking away. It could be said that Top Gun is an advertisement for the homo-erotic army! Yet in spite of its obvious daftness, Top Gun is very much a thrill ride. Disengage yourself from the preposterous nature of events out of the sky, and it royally entertains as an action picture of worth. Zooming jet sequences and sparky man to man beefcake exchanges more than make this a worthy revisit, especially now in this HD and booming home cinema age.
It's not great for sure, and anyone really proclaiming it to be as such has been having MTV filtered into their brains for the last 20 years. But it is an entertaining film, and the people involved with it knew exactly what they was doing, and when one looks at the ream of poor imitations that have followed over the years? Well Top Gun actually holds up as one of the most quintessential 80s pictures ever made....for better or worse? 7/10