TOP FUN
Everything you need to know about Top Gun: Maverick from who’s in it to new love interest and secret nods to original
STRAP yourself in, slip your Aviators on and get ready for take-off as the much-anticipated sequel to Top Gun finally arrives – 36 years after the original.
Tom Cruise, who became a Hollywood superstar thanks to the 1986 classic about a group of elite fighter pilots, is back in the cockpit.
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Top Gun: Maverick was practically all in the can by June 2019 – but refining the huge action sequences and the pandemic led to a delay of three years.
And although the film is not out for another 12 days, critics have already hailed it as this year’s top blockbuster.
Dulcie Pearce and Kate Jackson reveal what you can expect to see.
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RETURNING CAST
ACTION man Tom Cruise, 59, returns as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, riding into our lives again on a new Kawasaki motorbike.
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And fans will be delighted to know Batman Forever star Val Kilmer, 62 – who battled throat cancer in 2017 – will be back as Maverick’s former rival, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky.
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Cruise said he “rallied hard” for Kilmer’s return, and director Joseph Kosinski called him a “huge, huge get.”
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Anyone who had a poster of Kelly McGillis as instructor Charlie Blackwood on their bedroom wall will be disappointed to learn she is not in the sequel.
Kelly, 64, had her own thoughts on why she wasn’t asked back, saying: “I’m old and I’m fat and I look age-appropriate for what my age is.”
Meg Ryan, 60, who played Goose’s wife, Carole, did not make the cut either.
Kosinski said the filmmakers had not been “throwing around” possible storylines for the two female characters when they were planning the new movie.
THE NEWCOMERS
IN the original film, Goose – played by ER’s Anthony Edwards – suffered fatal injuries after ejecting from his plane.
But the pilot’s legacy lives on in the form of his son, trainee pilot Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Whiplash’s Miles Teller).
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New recruits include arrogant Hangman, played by Glen Powell, who has flickers of the original’s Iceman about him, while Phoenix (Monica Barbaro) is Top Gun’s first female pilot.
Jennifer Connelly, the Oscar-winning actress from A Beautiful Mind, appears as love interest Penny – a single mum who was referenced in the original as Maverick’s fling with the “admiral’s daughter.”
There’s a nod to the first film when Penny gets on the back of Maverick’s motorbike.
Other big names in the mix are Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, who plays Vice- Admiral Cyclone, and The Truman Show’s Ed Harris as Maverick’s supervisor.
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THE PLOT
THE story is set 30 years after we last met the young guns at the US Navy’s elite fighter weapons school.
Maverick is at the top of his field, working as a test pilot and refusing to be grounded.
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His mission now is to train a group of Top Gun graduates for a special mission, “the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen”.
They must neutralise a uranium enrichment plant on an unnamed island which is heavily protected by the forces of an enemy regime. But Maverick’s boss Cyclone does not want him to join the recruits on their high-stakes mission . . .
THE STUNTS
YOU want aerial acrobatics and breath-taking dog fights? You’ll get ’em – including a stunt so extreme, producers had to seek approval from the US Navy to film.
And, incredibly, they are all real – no CGI was used in filming. Behind-the-scenes footage shows the crew enveloped in a cloud of dust and equipment rattling as a plane swoops just metres above their heads.
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Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original and the sequel, said: “Technology has advanced so a lot of the things we couldn’t do before, we can now, especially with the aerial footage.
“And Tom is an aviator, so he can fly anything.”
Navy rules meant civilian Cruise was not allowed to operate Maverick’s F-18 Super Hornet, worth £54million. However, he does fly a P-51 propeller-driven plane and helicopters.
Glen Powell, who plays Hangman, was so committed to the role, he even got his pilot’s licence – with the training paid for by Cruise.
THE SOUNDTRACK
IT’S impossible to think of Top Gun without humming the movie’s anthem, Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins.
So fans will be pleased to learn the classic hit also returns. A few years ago, Cruise told Loggins: “We can’t do Top Gun without Danger Zone.”
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Berlin’s romantic ballad Take My Breath Away earned an Oscar for Best Original Song – the only Academy Award won by the original movie.
Now producers will be pinning their hopes on Lady Gaga’s Hold My Hand – which Cruise calls the “heartbeat” to the film – to have the same impact. Gaga, whose track Shallow from A Star Is Born won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2019, described her Top Gun number as “a love letter to the world during and after a very hard time.”
The Bad Romance singer also helped write the movie’s score with Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe and Top Gun’s composer Harold Faltermeyer.
Miles Teller sings Great Balls Of Fire in a nod to the original, and there is also a new song by OneRepublic, I Ain’t Worried.
Bombs and baddies – it’s a blast
FEEL the need . . . the need to tell you how astonishingly good the new Top Gun is.
With all the adrenaline, spectacular stunts, humour and heart of the first blockbuster, it also has an all-action storyline of bombs and baddies to beat Bond.
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From the very first beat of the synthesiser in the famous Top Gun anthem, it’s a non-stop blast of action at high altitude. It’s been 36 years since we last saw Tom Cruise slipping out of his shirt and into his Aviators as test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
As rebellious as ever, and only slightly more mature, Maverick has purposely dodged any advancement through the ranks, even though he is one of the most successful pilots.
His skills are then called upon by Vice Admiral Cyclone (Jon Hamm) to train a group of the new “best of the best” graduates in the Top Gun programme, which includes Rooster (Miles Teller) the son of his late wingman Goose.
It’s clear that Maverick’s ways are considered old school by Cyclone who barks at him, “The future is coming, and you’re not in it,” as he reveals how one day fighter jets won’t even need pilots anymore.
But that doesn’t sway Mav, who gets the class’s attention on day one by going full Dead Poet’s Society and throwing the pilot manual into the bin. He wants to teach them things that can’t be learned from pesky books.
Dare I say, it’s a better film than the first? I think I dare.
Dulcie Pearce
The new class are a perfect modern mixture of cocky pilots and you immediately warm to them in a bar scene where Rooster takes to the piano to bash out Great Balls Of Fire, causing Maverick to remember Goose doing the same in the original film.
Other clever uses of flashbacks and old pictures pull you back to the young crew you originally fell in love with. And, fear not ladies and gentlemen, part of Maverick’s training programme includes taking tops off, oiling up and doing chest pumps on the beach in a very hands-on and homoerotic game of American football.
Cruise isn’t the only returning cast member, with a clearly very unwell Val Kilmer as Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky making a poignant scene between the pilots.
Apart from a few scene-stealing moments from the excellent Jon Hamm, there’s barely a moment you look away from Cruise. His performance is a hypnotic mix of classic action hero with a more mature man who has been jaded by life.
And the stunts are so spectacular you can feel the G-force hitting you from the big screen. Dare I say, it’s a better film than the first? I think I dare.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll gasp and your heart will race. Quite simply, it will take your breath away.
TOP GUN: MAVERICK
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(12A) 131mins
★★★★★
- DULCIE PEARCE
- Top Gun: Maverick will be released on May 25.
TO KNOW
- Top Gun director Tony Scott, brother of Ridley, began setting up the sequel in 2010 but took his life in 2012
- In 2017, Tom Cruise confirmed the title and Joseph Kosinski was announced as director
- Filming took 13 months over 2018/19 with a budget of £124m
- Six IMAX-quality cameras were fitted in the F-18 Super Hornets to film actors “flying” the planes, which were actually operated by Navy pilots in another seat
- Cruise was paid £10.6m to play Maverick in the sequel
- The original movie’s budget was only £12m
- The first Top Gun made £300m at box office – equal to £666m today
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