Top Gun: Maverick
Out now
NEAR the climax of Joseph Kosinski鈥檚 delirious sequel to 1986 hit Top Gun, a state-of-the-art, fifth-generation fighter plane engages Pete 鈥淢averick鈥� Mitchell鈥檚 aircraft in a dogfight around snow-capped mountains. Suddenly, the huge, hulking wonderplane banks, stalls and turns, hanging over Mav (Tom Cruise, even more steely eyed than usual) and his wingman Rooster (Miles Teller) as though it is painted on the sky.
鈥淲hat the fuck was that?鈥� Rooster cries, although an actual graduate of TOPGUN (official name, the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor programme) would probably know a Herbst manoeuvre when they saw one.
The Herbst (also known as a J-turn) is the kind of move you can pull only if you are flying one of a handful of very expensive fighters designed and built since 2010. The Russian Sukhoi Su-57 is one; China has the Chengdu J-20.
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We aren鈥檛 told which aircraft Mav is up against here, but he is in trouble: the F/A-18s he is commanding are no slouch, but, being children of the 1990s, they are neither super-stealthy nor super-manoeuvrable.
Mav is also facing off against progress, personified by a rear admiral nicknamed the Drone Ranger who (in a splendidly sour cameo by Ed Harris) declares that drones are the future, and that carrier-based fighter pilots like Mav are dinosaurs.
Most of the time, however, this sequel steers clear of ideas, and devotes itself wholly to 1980s nostalgia, as Mav (now a test pilot) sets about making his peace with the orphaned son of his old wingman Nick 鈥淕oose鈥� Bradshaw. This is a well-told tale of misunderstanding and redemption, interspersed with one-liners and Easter eggs for fans of the earlier film. In one touching, funny scene, Mav thanks Ice (now, God help us, commander of the US Pacific fleet) for keeping him in fighter planes and out of promotion. Of Kelly McGillis鈥檚 Charlie, Mav鈥檚 love interest in the first movie, there is no mention, but not every storyline can look back, and in this film, Mav鈥檚 old flame Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) proves no pushover.
This is a peculiar project: part war film (as our heroes steal a plane from under the noses of the enemy), part techno-thriller (as Mav breaks all speed records and reaches an epic 3.5 kilometres a second) and part sports movie (as Mav welds his TOPGUN pupils into a world peace-saving team).
Films can be good fun-fair rides as much as they can be good dramas, and it would be silly to criticise this thrilling display of real-world aeronautical stunt work for its lack of narrative realism. What we might look forward to eventually, though, is a film that looks for peril and heroism in a more contemporary theatre, featuring aerial combat that is truly fifth-generation: super-stealthy, super-manoeuvreable, and drone-enhanced.
Until someone makes that imaginative leap (and, crucially, can take a global audience along for the ride), we can expect armed-forces movies to draw increasingly on science fiction for their plots. Why is the pilot dogfighting with Mav dressed like an Imperial TIE-fighter pilot from Star Wars? Why is the illegal uranium enrichment plant that is the target of Mav鈥檚 raid equipped with a 2-metre-wide exhaust vent lifted from the Death Star? Because this is what science fiction is, much of the time: a placeholder, a hoarding that reads, 鈥淐oming soon: the future.鈥�
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Vintage
鈥淲hat is it that makes a man willing to sit on top of an enormous Roman Candle鈥� and wait for someone to light the fuse?鈥� Tom Wolfe鈥檚 1979 account of US test pilots and their aircraft is as timeless as 鈥渢he right stuff鈥� itself.
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