Top Gun Review

The flying is the case for the defense and it is a strong one. Scott put camera crews aboard actual carrier operations and mounted rigs on airframes, so the dogfights carry g-force and disorientation that no ground-based simulation of the period approached, and the sequences are cut for spatial clarity rather than chaos. Stunt pilot Art Scholl died getting some of it. On the ground the film collapses. The script gives Maverick a dead father, a dead friend and a chip on his shoulder, then resolves all three with the same shot of a jet climbing, and the training-school plot has no antagonist beyond a rival who is demonstrably correct about him.

Cruise plays charisma rather than character, and Kelly McGillis is handed an astrophysicist instructor with nothing to instruct. Faltermeyer's synths and the soundtrack singles supply emotion the scenes have not earned. It is an extremely effective commercial for a lifestyle and a very thin film around it.