Top Gun: Maverick

Boom there it is. Or rather with a sonic boom, there it is… Top Gun: Maverick.

So, if I asked you to describe a sequel for Top Gun, I’m pretty sure you could do it. You know the ingredients. And yet this salt and sugar sequel does more than deliver on its popcorn premise. Sure, you can expect dog fights, power ballads and motorbikes trying out drag F-18s but even when the 1980s clipped snare drums start and division bells chime, this is a different danger zone that Tom Cruise wants to take you back to.

… Top Gun: Maverick and Kenny Loggins are ready to go to Danger zone once more.

Plot-wise when he’s not fixing up an ageing mustang in his hangar cum home, Peter Maverick Mitchell is doing what he does best. Pissing off the top brass. Sent back to Top Gun he’s forced to retrain the best pilots for an impossible mission. However, danger lurks in the form of Miles Teller’s Rooster, The son of his former co-pilot from the first film. As a result, Maverick sees nothing but ghosts and a past that is filled with more shame than he can cope with. Fortunately, Jennifer Connelly’s bar owner love interest is there to listen and, for me, this affords the movie’s chief appeal. Tom Cruise gets to act and not save the world.

The real footage of the dogfights and Training are exceptional and you’ve probably already got a flavour from the trailers, but on the full screen, they put Tom Cruise’s film-it-for-real ethos onto another plane.

In short, don’t think just do. Lovingly dedicated to the late Tony Scott, Top Gun: Maverick and Kenny Loggins are ready to go to Danger zone once more – and you should too.