Top Gun (1986)

Something I've heard a lot since I started blogging four years ago is that Top Gun is one of those classics you must watch a least once in your life. For a reason or another — mainly because I tried to avoid everything with Tom Cruise as my love for him is quite recent —, I never watched it. Since a sequel is coming (soon), I finally decided to watch it. 

The story follows Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchel (Tom Cruise), a young, cocky, hotshot pilot. After a daredevil stunt, Maverick receives news that he's being accepted into an elite training academy known as "Top Gun", along with his co-pilot and friend, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards). As soon as he begins his training, he's faced with two distractions — a highly competitive fellow student, Iceman (Val Kilmer), and Charlie Blackwood (Kelly McGillis), the attractive woman whom Maverick hits on the night before he's discovered who turns out to be one of his instructors. 

Given how much love Top Gun gets pretty much from everyone, I was expecting a compelling story about a young pilot involving rivalry, friendship and a romance. Instead, I found myself watching a soporific story in which a cliché is immediately followed by another cliché, that is utterly predictable and that feels like an ad for the military. 

The characters aren't that well written either. Not only every single one of them has no characterization nor development whatsoever which felt me cold about all of them — I guess I was supposed to be sad when Goose died but I just didn't care —, but the main character, Cruise's Maverick comes off as an arrogant, immature jerk who is far away from being likeable, and, unfortunately as I've come to love Cruise, the blame is not all on the writers. The fact is that Crusie swaggers, smirks and grins his way through the film, giving what's easily the worst performance of his I've seen (so far). And his chemistry with Kelly McGillis is non-existent and therefore the romantic subplot doesn't work at all. The rest of the cast also does a terrible job but the blame is not all on the actors as the film doesn't have a plot nor solid direction. Dreadful dialogues I'm having a hard time believing someone was paid to write, that the film has.

Paramount Pictures

On the other hand, Top Gun is filled with action. Unfortunately, this is yet another negative aspect as it lacks excitement since it is the kind of action kids enjoy — fighter jets blasting off, roaring, pilots showing off, and other childish stuff like that. There are also some sequences that make no sense whatsoever — what's the point on focusing on Cruise, trying to capture his smirk when he's wearing a mask that almost covers his entire face?

Where are the good parts? Well, some of the action is decent, the scenery and costumes are pretty well done, and the soundtrack is quite good. Unfortunately, these few things alone aren't enough to save Top Gun from being the overrated, dull film it is.