I hadn’t watched the original Top Gun until last night, but I’m glad I did and even gladder that I watched this amazing 35-year-later sequel today. As a teen in the 80s, I never understood the love for Top Gun. Its cocky, rule-breaking hero; its macho, slogan-filled dialogue; and its dizzying, testosterone-fuelled cockpit action sequences didn’t add up to a great movie for me (even when I finally sat down to watch it from beginning to end yesterday). However, I’m glad I watched it, because Maverick echoes so much of the original movie — but not in a “look at me, I’m a reboot” kind of way. In fact, this movie should be the template for how sequels should pay loving tribute to the original. From the text card about the Top Gun flight school at the start of the movie, to opening-credit shots of fighter planes being prepped on the deck of an aircraft carrier, every classic scene, slogan, or moment from Top Gun has an homage in this movie (except if you’re a Righteous Brothers fan, or you feel the need for speed, you might be a little disappointed). As much as this story has come full-circle (and Maverick would not have existed if not for the original), it also feels like Top Gun was the blueprint that finds completion in this superior sequel.

Another factor in making Maverick better is probably that people involved in the original, such as writer Jim Cash, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and of course Tom Cruise himself, have had 30+ years of their careers to mature and hone their craft and return for this sequel. Tom Cruise appears in a quick little statement before the movie thanking the audience for coming to see this film that was “30 years in the making”. While I’d be surprised if they’d been thinking about making this sequel anywhere close to that long, it still shows how they wanted to make good on the original and to apply all their filmmaking experience to doing it well. On the topic of time passing, Tom Cruise definitely looks amazingly fit for his age (for someone half his age, really) and Jennifer Connelly, who plays his love interest, is absolutely luminous in the movie as well. I really hope that no de-aging CGI was used, but they obviously still used coloured filters to give so many scenes their warm and healthy glow — we’ll just call that another homage to the 80s. Cruise’s character, Maverick, has gone through a lot of humbling over the decades (obviously from guilt over Goose’s death from the first film, but also apparently from failure as a Top Gun flight instructor) and Cruise himself delivers the character’s muted cockiness with much better acting — even the facial twitches when Maverick struggles emotionally are much improved.

For this sequel, they brought in a bunch of new pilots (the best of the Top Gun graduates, apparently) for an impossible mission (See what I did there?) to blow up a secret nuclear facility in the mountains (insert villainous enemy here). While there are some similarities to the OG crew (there’s another cocky one, called “Hangman” instead of “Iceman”, and another nerdy one called “Bob” instead of “Goose”), thankfully they are not merely trying to create a “next generation” version of the original characters, like so many other franchises have done (I’m looking at you, Star Wars!). Most of the focus is on Maverick’s story, so it’s really working more as a sequel or continuation. Additionally, the character of Rooster, played by Miles Teller, brings in the themes of guilt and forgiveness (of Maverick for causing the accidental death of Rooster’s father Goose in Top Gun) and also acts as a surrogate son for Maverick (and all the drama baggage that brings).

Nevertheless, everything I’ve said so far only shows that Maverick makes a good sequel/reboot (seboot?) to Top Gun. It still needs to stack up on its own as an action drama full of stunts and adrenaline-boosting aerial sequences. On that front, Maverick entirely delivers and then some (which was something I didn’t truly expect, even after all the other excellent reviews that the movie has received). While I found the cockpit scenes (where we see a pilot’s face dead-centre on the screen and he’s looking around to see what’s happening — maybe the camera shakes or spins to give us a headache, though intending to simulate the effect of flying in a fighter jet) to be quite annoying in the first movie, they must have improved them somehow because now they are more understandable and I actually felt engaged with the characters in those scenes. The aerial combat scenes were so incredibly well-shot and thrilling that you really feel like you’re there with the characters. I was surprised how much I enjoyed those scenes and how I was on the edge of my seat for the bombing mission, and everything that came after it. I even developed a slight appreciation for fighter planes (you get a little bit of a visual, historical lesson just by seeing the various planes that appear in this movie).

I don’t know if I’m really expressing well that Top Gun: Maverick is an incredible movie — probably the best movie I’ve seen this year (not that I’ve seen too many), and definitely a surprise favourite. Watching the original Top Gun right before watching Maverick truly helped me appreciate both of these movies together and how they make a wonderful pair. It’s like how a really good appetizer adds enjoyment to a delicious meal, or a great opening act makes the concert so much better. (Apologies to die-hard Top Gun fans who might feel like I’m diminishing their beloved classic, but even you have to admit that Maverick is the better movie.) It’s been a long time since I’ve found a movie that so far exceeds my expectations. (5 out of 5 for Maverick; 3.5 out of 5 for Top Gun)

4 movies down, 36 to go!