Top Gun: Maverick shows vintage Tom Cruise magic still works amidst Hollywood’s rapidly-changing milieu

“The future is coming and you are not in it,” Ed Harris as Rear Admiral Chester ‘Hammer’ Cain tells Tom Cruise’s Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell early on in _Top Gun: Maverick_, adding: “Your kind is settled for extinction.” Cruise’s retort is all about signature swagger: “Maybe so, Sir. But not today.” On cue, the drama jump cuts to the outdoors as Maverick zips into frame riding his talismanic Kawasaki Ninja superbike, trademark leather jacket and Aviator shades in place. The iconic _Top Gun_ theme tune hits crescendo.

Harris’ lines summing up Maverick’s current situation amusingly remind us of Judi Dench’s scene as M in Goldeneye, where she is at her caustic best while defining James Bond. “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to that young woman I sent out to evaluate you,” M tells Bond, played by Pierce Brosnan in his debut outing of the 007 franchise. That was 1995, time for Bond start mending his ways, and be openly castigated for his philandering ways of the past decades. Harris’ assertion of Maverick is perhaps meant to serve a slightly different purpose. More than Maverick, the conversation aims at drawing attention to the screen star who portrays the role.

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Thirty-six years after Top Gun became Tom Cruise’s first serious shot at Hollywood superstardom, it is more than a coincidence that the film’s sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, should arrive at this point of his career. In many ways, the late Tony Scott’s Top Gun outlined what Cruise’s rise would mean for Hollywood, in the decades to follow since that first film released in 1986. In every way, the sequel tries to be an assertion on the part of the actor, who turns 60 in July. Cruise knows time is not on his side much longer but he clearly isn’t in the mood to take the last bow as a hero just yet. With Top Gun: Maverick, the actor was essentially out to prove that the vintage Tom Cruise magic still matters in a rapidly-changing Hollywood.

Cruise’s return as the star test pilot Maverick looks set to open big over the weekend, with trade estimates in the United States alone pitching the four-day opening gross at over $92 million. “It is not only expected to be the three-time Oscar nominee’s best worldwide opening of his career at $180 million, but also a record for him stateside with at least $92M-$100M+ in box office and what also looks to be one of the top 10 debuts over the four-day May holiday frame,” states a report in Deadline. The film’s plot is cleverly contemporary, narrating how the veteran Maverick is assigned to train, and subsequently join, a bunch of handpicked young fighter pilots on a mission to destroy a uranium enrichment facility of an unnamed nation that violates NATO protocol. At a time when the United States openly leads global protest against Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine, Cruise couldn’t have hoped for a better film to return to the limelight.

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For Cruise, the burgeoning box office math of Top Gun: Maverick is important because it consolidates his stature as a saleable superstar. His biggest opener, till before Top Gun: Maverick came along, is still _War Of The Worlds_. Released in 2005, the film had seen a $64.9-million opening weekend. The CNBC website reports the actor’s biggest hit ever is his last release, _Mission: Impossible – Fallout_. Riding the M:I brand power, the film did a global business worth $791.1 million. It is a figure the actor will try to beat with his new film.

Top Gun 1986 still triggers instant nostalgia for an entire generation that grew up watching Tom Cruise grow as a star, though the film is relatively ‘old property’ for GenNow moviegoers. That is unlike the M:I franchise, which has thrived over the decades since the first film of that series released in 1996. Cruise’s claim to fame over the last decade has basically rested on playing the superspy Ethan Hunt in the M:I films. It is an image Cruise has smartly used to reiterate his position as a cool and contemporary screen icon in sync with the times, bearing testimony to the fact he can adapt to the changing definition of entertainment.

Top Gun: Maverick aims to score by creating just the opposite impact. Here, Cruise returns as a man who hasn’t changed at all over more than three decades, or bothered to adapt with changing times. He may have grown older but Maverick is still a test pilot, having passed over several shots at promotion because these would have changed his job profile. He is yet to settle down in personal life and at work his military daredevilry often draws the admonishing frown of seniors. His screen image as a pop patriotic hero remains larger than life just as in the good old days. “He’s the fastest man alive!” exults a starry-eyed ground staffer as Maverick breaks Mach 10 speed barrier in a prototype, without bothering to seek permission before flying the craft. The quintessential loverboy is very much alive, too, and the fact is established through Maverick’s chemistry with Jennifer Connelly’s Penny, a single mother who runs a local bar.

With many other stars his age, it is an image fraught with cliches that would make them look jaded. Cruise pulls it off with retro finesse, mainly because he was the Hollywood original who patented the image all those years ago.

Top Gun: Maverick avoids the Hollywood fad of a post-credits scene, which is normally used to hint at a particular franchise’s return with a new film in the future. Maybe, Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski wanted to keep ’em guessing for now about Top Gun 3. Or maybe, it was their way to ensure everything about the new film including post-credits remained exactly the way it used to be back in the day. Kosinski, in fact, maintains an old-school vibe all through the narrative as Cruise goes about recreating the vintage glamour of Maverick. The odd scene where Maverick chats on WhatsApp strangely looks out of place, in this engaging retro saga of action and drama.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.

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