BLUF: Top Gun Maverick (TGM) is an excellent summer action movie. Highly recommend seeing it. A movie deserving to be seen on as big a screen with as an immersive an audio system as is available.
UP-FRONT DISCLAIMERS:
1) We (wife & I) saw it at the
Big Mo Drive-In Theater on a very large screen (but pretty far away) with sound transmitted thru a Chevy Silverado's stock sound system by FM radio (surprisingly good). She has 20+ years as a fighter pilot's wife and greatly enjoyed the show.
2) I am retired USAF, not USN. I flew F-15C Eagles, not F-18E/F Hornets. My fighter mission area was exclusively Air-to-Air, not Air-to-Ground.
3) I am nostalgic about the first TG movie (original) since it came out in 1986, while I was teaching pilot training in the T-38 Talon and aspiring to be a fighter pilot (got lucky and this came to pass).
POST-MISSION DEBRIEF (aka movie review):
Dash-1 CAUTION: Below includes no intentional
"Spoiler Alerts" but "
You pay your Money, You take your Chances"
1) Pre-flight: Watching or rewatching the original movie was very helpful in being able to follow several plot lines.
2) What Went Well: TGM, like the original, does a great job at portraying the fun, excitement, risk and challenges of flying fighters.
The directors did a superb job, best-seen-to-date IMHO, on capturing and displaying aerial fighter training and combat on a movie screen. That is a very tough ask.
The air combat mission scenes are pointedly more accurate than the original (i.e. original had silly aileron rolls and back-n-forth wing wagging, YGTBSM), BUT still have MANY things that never would happen in training or could happen in combat.
The aircraft-to-aircraft radio calls were markedly improved over the original. Comms were much more concise and less distracting than in the original. Fighter communications are highly standardized in a language all to its own; the writers did a good job of massaging the radio calls to adhere to the principles of fighter communications, yet be understandable to a wider audience. Kudos.
The movie producers reverted to using the original leather jacket back patch, and not the BS China sanitized one shown in a few trailers. China didn't/won't allow this movie to be seen in their autocratic, mind controlling, country anyways, so to H-E-double-hockey-sticks with them.
Soundtrack and music selections did a nice job of keeping continuity with the original.
3) Areas For Improvement: I could spend all day, and too much of your time, nit-picking the uncountable flight and combat inaccuracies, but that is not the point of the movie, nor this review.
If you go to see this movie to develop a technical understanding of fighter aircraft training or air combat you are watching the wrong show, go visit the Discovery Channel.
4) Lessons Learned: This is a solid choice for a fun, enjoyable, summer action movie that portrays the "emotional" highs and lows ("
If you fly fighters long enough, you will lose somebody") of flying fighters and being in air combat. You will enjoy it a lot. I intend to get this movie on BluRay if/when it comes out, presentation in my HT should be a hoot.
Cheers,
XEagleDriver