Top Gun: The Black Mirror

This is literally a monument to Tom Cruise’s immortality.

Where is your god now?

When future scientists seek to pinpoint the precise moment Tom Cruise became something More Than Human, they will likely use Top Gun: Maverick as at least part of the key. To say that Cruise looks good for a 60-year old man is an incredible understatement¹: His uncanny youth and fitness may not be technically impossible, but they are so unusual you just can’t help but stare. He’s mesmerizing, though perhaps not in the way he wants to be². He’s like a T-3000 Terminator, nearly perfect in every way—the only reason you don’t totally buy that he’s human is gut instinct, really. Cruise may be the first actual human to slide into the uncanny valley.

Still, he may be a dark sorcerer but Cruise’s possibly supernatural youth and impressive charisma aren’t enough to save Top Gun: Maverick from being a pretty awful film. Top Gun was not exactly high art, but it coasted along on gung-ho charm and Kenny Loggins tunes³ and was harmless enough jingoistic propaganda-tainment at a time in history when MTV still played music videos. This improbable sequel is equal parts plodding, predictable, and dull, despite having some admittedly amazing camera work during the flight sequences⁴. But the fact that a sequel released 35 years after the original feels like a cash grab isn’t too surprising. What’s really interesting is why the film is so plodding: After a feint at something slightly more interesting in the first few minutes, the film settles in to slavishly recreate the original in just about every way, because this isn’t a movie. It’s a monument to Tom Cruise’s immortality⁵.

Ride My Tail Any Time

When I die I want to come back to this world as a Professional Handsome Man.

To its credit, the film acknowledges the passage of time. Cruise plays Pete “Maverick” Mitchell as a 50-ish Navy pilot who has rejected any promotion or assignment that takes him out of the cockpit, and he’s regarded with open disdain by his superiors, who increasingly regard him as a relic⁶. While his achievements as a pilot are legendary, no one thinks he has a place in the modern Navy any more. His last chance explicitly takes him out of the cockpit, in fact—there’s a dangerous (and ridiculous) mission, but Pete won’t be flying it. He’ll be training the team of hot shot pilots who will be flying it.

(How ridiculous is this mission? The producers are so terrified of offending foreign box office they don’t actually name the country being attacked. The enemy soldiers are never shown without helmets on, none of their equipment has insignia, and none of them ever speak lest you suss out a language clue. The mission basically takes place in Generica, land of the silhouettes and the vaguely-gestured-at. To recap: This movie cost $170 million to make⁷ and the setpiece mission at its climax might be set in Arizona for all we know).

Now, for a mediocre sequel to a film that defines mediocrity, that’s not a bad start for a story. Making Maverick wrestle with mortality, aging, and the consequences of his mistakes? Could be interesting. Then, about thirty minutes in the movie laughs and says isn’t Tom Cruise hella cool!? and chucks all of that out the window. It proceeds to mimic the first film in ways both overt (entire scenes are basically re-enacted, the Kelly McGillis role is replaced with an identical Jennifer Connelley role) and less overt (the brass constantly bristle at Maverick’s cocky attitude as if he’s still a smirking twenty-something⁸). And Pete Mitchell becomes—like the man who plays him—something of a supernatural force. He begins outflying the younger pilots, easily humiliating them⁹. He forges them into a team by sheer charismatic willpower. And when the chips are down, he’s selected to lead the mission.

I Feel the Need for Speed

I do celebrate the fact that this movie admits women still exist after the age of 50. I would have awarded extra points if Jennifer Connnelley had said “YOU CAN RIDE MY TAIL ANY TIME!” at some point in the movie.

Now, the fact that Tom Cruise is the protagonist of a Tom Cruise film is certainly no surprise. But the way the film completely forgets all the stuff it introduces in the beginning about Maverick’s age and looming obsolescence is kind of disorienting, because by about the middle of the movie Maverick might as well be 30 again. Sure, they were thoughtful enough to get Cruise an age-appropriate love interest in Connelley as Penny Benjamin (who also looks amazing, though slightly less superhuman than Cruise, and who apparently joined the film after the producers didn’t like the fact that Kelly McGillis can no longer pass for 35), but the beats of the relationship are almost exactly the same as the first film—twisted slightly with the addition of Benjamin’s young daughter.

Beyond that slight nod to reality, Maverick simply becomes the Top Gun again. He outflies everyone, he saves the day, he never once winces or suffers any sort of age-related slow down or challenge¹⁰. The character flirted with reality and then becomes Tom Cruise, essentially, god-like and ever-youthful and effortlessly in charge no matter his actual age, rank, or ostensible profession.

So, your tolerance for Top Gun: Maverick will track precisely to your tolerance of Cruise himself. By the end I wouldn’t have been surprised if the producers had slowly started to deepfake Cruise into all the other roles, because his presence crowds everyone else out. Even other Professional Handsome Men like Jon Hamm and Miles Teller barely register once Cruise turns on the charm—which is, of course, why the man still gets paid enormous sums of money to stand around grinning like an asshole¹¹.

Of course, I do a lot of standing around grinning like an asshole for free, so who’s the real hero here¹²?

Next week: Avenue 5 and too many layers of dark comedy.

1. I’ve looked 60 since I was 15, which was great when I was buying beers for the gang in high school and now less great as children rush to help me cross the street on a regular basis.

2. Increasingly, watching Tom Cruise defy age is like watching a horse do math.

3. And shirtless volleyball.

4. These in-cockpit shots might have been mind-blowing in an IMAX situation, but at home on a smaller screen they actually serve to make the film feel small and claustrophobic. This is why movies have gotten smaller-scale in recent years: They’re anticipating being shown on someone’s 60-inch beater TV. As a man who once owned a 13-inch black and white television in his first apartment, this blows my mind.

5. Crusie is about a year away from a Bender “REMEMBER ME” space statue.

6. The 1980s vibe of authority figures baffled by Cool Man’s disdain for rules and professionalism is pretty wild here. This is the 2020s, ma’am, renegades with their own sets of rules are pretty old-school.

7. And yet no one can give me, like, a measly $1 million just because I’m an okay guy? Capitalism makes no sense.

8. The Tom Cruise persona has always been Smirking Asshole with Secret Heart of Gold, but that hits different when you’re 25 versus when you’re 60.

9. Because I am a professional writer who can Google things, I have learned that there have been Navy pilots who remain active into their 50s, so I can’t clown Cruise and company too much here. This lack of clowning is killing me.

10. I recently pulled something in my back while sweeping the floor. The idea that Cruise can essentially run an American Ninja Warrior course every day and not even pull a muscle is insulting, frankly.

11. And I get paid tiny amounts of money to write about people like Tom Cruise. Oh, mistakes have been made, boyo.

12. Me. It’s always me.