on billboard
A traumatized Tom Cruise survives with flying colors a gooey approach that leads to a tense ending, spectacularly resolved. A confessed exercise in pure nostalgia with good action images sailing through the clouds
The billboard is complicated, many films are released suddenly after the return to normality and it is usually one or two titles that take the cat to the water in terms of publicity and fat profits. The blockbuster of the day dominates the media and monopolizes popular taste. It is difficult to unseat ‘Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness’ from number 1 in the ranking – there ‘Five little wolves’ resists in second place at the box office with the best collection per copy -, and an expected title is already taking over that attends to the current excessive exploitation of nostalgia by the cultural industries, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, sequel to the hit starring the immortal Tom Cruise in the mid-80s. A film that stood out in its day for its exacerbated romanticism and the pull of the main cast, with the star of ‘Cocktail’ at the helm, after ‘Risky Business’, ‘Rebeldes’ and ‘Legend’, coinciding in time with ‘ The color of money’. ‘Top Gun (Idols of the air)’ ended up catapulting the career of one of the few, if not the only, actors of an era that no longer exists that continues to attract viewers to theaters. All the more reason for such a brilliant star, a veteran in spite of himself, to return to his glorious role more than three decades later, which is said soon. In this continuation they have not had their former partner in fiction, Kelly McGillis, still active, nor with the shadowed Meg Ryan, an issue that has generated some controversy in networks. This time brings the sentimental feminine touch Jennifer Connelly, who was barely sixteen years old when the beginning of what could become a succulent saga was released.
‘Top Gun (Idols of the air)’ was directed by the remembered Tony Scott, an interesting filmmaker within the framework of commercial cinema at the time, who left us too soon. This unexpected sequel is dedicated to him, whose command is taken by Joseph Kosinski, accepting a clear assignment after discreetly signing titles such as ‘Oblivion’, where it coincided with Cruise, or ‘Tron: Legacy’, his long-form debut. He was better on ‘Heroes from Hell’, where he collaborated with Connelly. His job in the premiere that concerns us is to give luster to a minimal plot that serves as an excuse to display spectacular scenes, especially in its final stretch, the best of the set (which includes, of course, its protagonist running like the devil ). To reach the tense climax, with breathtaking aerial shots, you have to go through a series of pastel sequences that define the tormented and rebellious character of Cruise’s role, emotionally affected by the memory of ghosts from the past. Friends who are no longer there, but his offspring are, with whom he has to interact at a military base where he tutors a group of young pilots. The relay must face a suicide mission for which, apparently, they are not prepared.
Before arriving with his fighters at the target and bombing it, located in a “rogue state”, as described, with which there is no flag and possible ideological blunders are shaken off, Cruise behaves like a teenager with the things of love , recalling some scenes of the eighties tape. Nostalgia is very present, it is the engine for the viewer and the reason for the project’s existence. Shots are replicated that inevitably refer to the original work, especially pressing the accelerator on the motorcycle. Of course, Cruise is not wearing a helmet and cuts the wind with an incomprehensible smile, unlike his attitude on board the plane. Apart from some Instagram moment on the beach, where the main characters show off their bodies under the sun, perhaps the most emotional moment of the film is Maverick’s encounter with Iceman, read Val Kilmer, especially if we have seen ‘Val’, the documentary dedicated to the latter recently premiered on Filmin. The simplicity of the conflict and the synthesis of the story in general is the greatest virtue of a premiere co-starring Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro and Ed Harris, among other faces. totally devoted to the accusation.
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