Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Oh my gosh, so much testosterone! It has been over 30 years since the original Top Gun, but Tom Cruise is still able to deliver a believable best fighter pilot still flying role. This is witty adrenaline booster that allows its leading producer, Cruise himself, to be a star—while upping the emotional and dramatic stakes of its predecessor with a healthy (but not overdone) dose of nostalgia. After a title card that explains what “Top Gun” is—the identical one that introduced us to the world of crème-de-la-crème Navy pilots in 1986—we find Maverick in a role on the fringes of the US Navy, working as an undaunted test pilot. No one is surprised that soon enough, he gets called on a one-last-job type of mission as a teacher to a group of recent Top Gun graduates. Their assignment is just as obscure as it was in the first movie. There is an unnamed enemy—let’s called it Russia because it’s probably Russia—some targets that need to be destroyed, a flight plan that sounds nuts, and a scheme that will require all successful Top Gun recruits to fly at dangerously low altitudes. In comparison to the original, there is some gender integration (one in 12 as opposed to none what-so-ever) and racial and cultural diversity—but it is extremely limited.