Top Gun

What does it say about a movie when the most memorable thing about it which has also lasted way past its creation was the song made for the film? Released in 1986, Top Gun is definitely not a movie that people often look back on and view as something that has ‘’held up well’’. Even just ignoring the obvious elements that would come from a movie of that type from the 1980s (it’s exactly as ‘male fantasy’ focused as you would expect), but even from a base technical level, the cracks in all the writing, characters, and story really show how bare-bones it is presented as.  It reminds everybody of a time when movies didn’t need depth or clever writing to entice people, but just something mindless and ‘cool’ in order to be profitable, as Top Gun, despite critics not liking it, earned itself a cult following and was a massive commercial hit at the time, grossing over $356 million over its $15 million production budget. So, with its sequel revising the tale in people’s heads and with a fresher perspective, is there anything truly salvageable from this movie. US Naval Aviator Pete Mitchell, aka Maverick (played by Tom Cruise) and his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) Nick Bradshaw, aka Goose (played by Anthony Edwards) are given the chance to attend TOPGUN, the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, which is home to some of the best pilots in the US. With Maverick’s incessant need to showboat and take life-threatening risks during his time in the cockpit, it puts him at odds with all the pilots around him, including his generals, one of TOPGUN’s best students, Iceman (played by Val Kilmer) and his instructor, Charlie (played by Kelly McGillis) who starts to grow affections for Maverick. However, after a tragic accident results in Maverick losing his cool and confidence, will he be able to pass his final test and become one of the best pilots. Top Gun will honestly give you everything you would expect from a movie of its type from the era it was released in; it doesn’t have a good story, its characters are bad, its writing is terrible, and it’s about as mindless as Michael Bay film, but it isn’t awful to sit through.

The premise and initial idea behind the film actually has some decent merit to it, as TOPGUN is a real thing; a school that has been training and teaching fighter/strike tactics and techniques to selected naval aviators and flight officers since 1969. Learning more about this environment, what went into the training, the procedures and techniques that were put into practice, maybe even some history on some of the past strongest flyers in the unit, there’s a lot of potential here for some interesting dives into the past and still leaving an excuse to show-off the navy. Honestly, the movie does, to its credit, get a lot of factual elements about the US Navy correct, as they assisted in the production of the film, and it does paint of picture of what this lifestyle and attitude would have been like back in those days. However, this isn’t a movie that is going to dissect these kind of real-world events and procedures, its not even a movie that’s going to entertain anything realistic in that manner, because this movie is mindless and written from a pre-pubescent mindset where the focus is on being loud, ‘’manly’’ and as extreme as possible. It very much feels like a product of its time movie, down to its tone, visuals, writing and soundtrack, and while it thankfully isn’t as packed with a lot of the cliches that are truly putrid from the 80s, it isn’t stacked with particularly good ones either. The story is incredibly paper-thin and lacking in purpose or emotional weight until maybe the third act where something of consequence happens. The directing from Tony Scott manages to hold it back from being laughably boring or embarrassingly lame thanks to its short running time, acceptable performances, and thankfully limited amounts of awful dialogue, but its not a job that brings anything that great to the table either, not helped out by being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is known for being attached to films with a mindless, often childish atmosphere to them. It’s a very shallow film that could have worked with a better handling of its set-up and basic plot, but it doesn’t do that.

With a weak story comes even weaker characters, and it’s a shame as again, this kind of set up is plentiful to show off some decent characters. Either as a colorful cast of cartoon characters, or as grounded realistic individuals with clear directions in this program, both avenues could have resulted in recognizable faces, but instead every character in this movie basically comes down to an either one-note trope, or even just a name. It’s a cliché to say that all these military-based stories have basic predictable characters, but it doesn’t have to be this bland and this lacking in depth, as no character in this movie has any sense of uniqueness to them between each other in the film, or from any other basic navy movie. All the sergeants basically blend together into one shouting leader figure, most of the other pilots don’t get much character or even any lines to work with, Val Kilmer just acts as the standard bully trope who doesn’t have much purpose outside of being that trope, Goose is just the ‘good sidekick’ in every meaning of the world with basically no purpose or even personality, and the girlfriend in this is a special case. Her entire purpose in this movie feels like its just so that Cruise can not only date her but achieve her because she is his superior and yet all she does in this movie is flirt with Cruise, talk about how great Cruise is and how she is basically willing to lose her job just to be with Cruise. It creates a really lame romance, the two actors don’t share chemistry, and considering this character is based on a real woman who developed tactics for aircraft carrier defense (Christine Fox), to know her entire purpose in this movie is to be Cruise’s woman feels a little demeaning. With that said, Cruise is probably the only one in this movie with an ounce of personality, and even that is one of a cocky showboat who constantly does bad things for no reason, yet the movie constantly rewards him for it, it’s an odd direction to say the least.

Thankfully, what this movie lacks in plot, character, and writing, it does slightly make up for it in its flying scenes. Considering this is basically what the movie is banking a lot of its best moments on, it makes sense that they would actually be the most well-done parts of the film. Not even for what they represent narratively or how they factor into anything meaningful as they don’t in the least, but they are filmed in a very effective way, there are some cool plane stunts which look pretty legitimate, and it’s nice to see a film feature this kind of dog fighting and plane stunt work in a movie that feels more grounded as opposed to more action oriented. The movie’s look is a little over saturated in orange lighting (another Bruckheimer cliché) and the homoerotic atmosphere this movie gives off is strange to say the least (at least for a movie of this type during the 80s), but it isn’t an ugly looking movie either and considering how overly masculine the movie tries to portray itself, to know that it practically comes full circle and kind of gains a completely different target audience is honestly a little funny in that regard (that volleyball scene with that context is not even trying to be subtle). The music for this film is strangely one of the crowning elements of this movie for movie-watchers as a whole, as one of the songs even won the film an Academy Award and the record is still to this day one of the most popular movie soundtracks ever, winning 9 platinum awards. The songs are pretty infamous (especially Danger Zone) and they do definitely fit the mood and time period, as well as not feel overly forced in and distracting like they would in other movies of its type

Top Gun is a very shallow, mindless film with stunts on its mind as opposed to story and characters, and that’s pretty much all you’re going to get, but at the same time, the movie isn’t unbearable to sit through either so it’s a movie that won’t leave you feeling defeated, but it will more than likely leave your mind entirely. Because of what the movie seems to promise, it allows people to lower their standards and not want anything deep or complex and instead just wish for some dumb fun, and for a lot of people, it looks like Top Gun did that, despite how this is clearly not a good movie. In comparison to other movies that feel dated from the 80s, there’s at least a sense of awkward nostalgia or even bizarre craziness that hooks people back to watching them, and maybe for someone who just wants to see planes flying really quickly, this is fine, but it doesn’t even carry that same sense. Perfectly harmless, but there’s plenty of other 80s movie that can offer better dumb popcorn flick atmosphere, the need for speed this movie inflicts doesn’t negate the need for good writing.