Top Gun [1986]

Having dated rather less well than Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, Top Gun remains problematic. Well toned, well oiled men wander semi-naked around the set while Jeffrey Kimball's camera lingers with lascivious attention on every protruding pectoral. Men like Goose and Slider sit behind Maverick and Iceman. Was the, presumably bored, scriptwriter having a laugh at the expense of a homophobic US military? I'm an optimist; I like to think so.

The "plot" centres on a pilot, scarred by the shabby treatment his father received at the hands of the military. Logically he would become an investigative journalist or something; try to clear his old pa's name. But then this is a Tony Scott film, a medium which logic has traditionally given a wide berth. Instead he becomes (surprise) a pilot, and tries to prove the old boy's innocence in a kind of modernist's trial by ordeal. During this quest he loses his tail gunner (ahem, navigator), forms a new and lasting relationship and even experiments briefly with heterosexuality.

The dialogue uses a device common to many modern books/films (c.f. Outbreak, John Grisham novels) - the guttural gruntings of the characters being liberally interspersed with technical jargon, thus relieving the writer of anything more challenging than regurgitating a textbook. Happily this also removes any feeling of nagging unease the audience could feel if confronted with long words they might be expected to know.

Nice flight sequences though, and rather like Microsoft Word, which has just tried to replace my use of "less well" with "fewer wells" - Top Gun can be, at times, unintentionally hilarious.


Highway to the Danger Zone!!   February 27, 2004
Nightwing015 (England, United Kingdom)
9 out of 15 found this review helpful

For a long time I had been looking for a movie with jet fighters, dogfights and a huge chunk of action. What I found has to quite possibly be the greatest film I have ever seen in my entire life.
I simply could not believe my eyes after watching this movie. The action scenes are absolutely superb - you would not believe that this movie was made in 1986. The F-14 tomcat fulfils its role as the navy's jet fighter and star of the show. Never have I seen a movie which has struck me with such eagerness to jump into a jet fighter and shoot down enemy MiGs myself.
The soundtrack for Top Gun, i must say, is awesome. Shooting off with the adrenaline-pumping "Danger Zone" to background the carrier-based catapult launches of the F-14s, and later dogfighting MiG-28s to the wicked sound of "Mighty Wings", I have never seen a movie with such great music. It is so wicked that the first thing I did after watching the movie was order the soundtrack on CD.
On to the storyline. Tom Cruise suits his role perfectly as Pete Mitchell (callsign "Maverick"), the hotshot fighter pilot who is sent off with his heart-warming friend and navigator, "Goose", to Mirarmar to join Top Gun, the "Top 1% of all Naval Aviators" and compete with the best of the best in an attempt to win the Top Gun trophy. While there he encounters a familiar astrophysicist (Kerry McGillis), who soon learns of Maverick's lack of knowledge on what happened to his father, an F-4 Phantom fighter pilot in Vietnam. Nevertheless, he meets an unexpected rival, "Iceman" (Val Kilmer) and thus the competition becomes even tighter. In my opinion though, Iceman too often compliments Maverick, "It's not your flying. It's your attitude.", a bit of an offset for a rival pilot. However, the acting is brilliant in all aspects of this movie.
But the dogfights is when the action really gets hot. Maverick and his team pull off countless G-force dives in some of the best battles you have ever seen, where they will dodge (and unleash) pulse-racing missile locks and shake off tails as they chase their instructor pilots, "Viper" and "Jester" down through canyons and vertical dives. There is a brilliant sense of teamwork when the real battles begin against Libyan MiG-28s(even though it's mostly Maverick who pulls off the kills) as they learn how to "never leave your wingman" and "stay above the hard-deck".
This movie is truly amazing. A masterpiece for any action fan willing to get their hands on a movie that will entertain them for eternity.


Cool shades, high fives and groovy 80's music   August 22, 2001
drsimpson@shrewsbury.org.uk (UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Socrates said the "unexamined life is not a life worth living for a human being". Well, I say that you haven't lived until you've watched this film. Packed with cheesy one-liners, stunning aerial photography and an awesome soundtrack, this film just can't be missed. Action, tragedy and Romance all rolled into one, not to mention cool shades, high fives and groovy 80's music. There are "no points for second place" and this film is definitely the "best of the best".


Great film, disappointing DVD transfer   December 27, 2001
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

You know the film, but if you're buying the DVD to replace your VHS copy I think you'll be disappointed. There's lots of grain / compression noise on the sky backgrounds and the film print from which the transfer was made is terrible. I guess this is an early transfer but even still there is no excuse for this. Comment relates to the 1999 R2 version - maybe there is a better transfer on Region 1?