Well we all knew that this movie would have to make its way to DVD, the question was "When will Paramount throw its hat into the DVD ring." Well that question was answered and Top Gun was among the first wave of films to be release on "Paramount DVD". It is both a blessing and a curse that this was released so early on. Read more below for why this is so.
It is truly difficult for me to image that anyone who is even remotely a movie fan that has not seen this movie. You see I was working in a movie theater, as a teenager, when this film hit the big screen. (Boy does that ever reveal my age). I used the hi-fi VHS version to show off how I hooked my VCR to my stereo. The first laserdisc I owned was Top Gun, and I upgraded that to the AC-3 version when I got my new decoder. So there was never a question as to whether or not the Top Gun DVD would be added to my collection.
For the few readers that have never seen this one, It’s the story of Maverick Mitchell’s (Tom Cruise) quest for the Navy’s brass ring, the prestigious fighter weapons school’s highest honor the Top Gun trophy. As hard as this crusade is for the other ace pilots, it is much harder for Maverick, due to his fathers supposed mistakes in an unauthorized "battle", Maverick consistently pushes the edge and disobeys authority.
The edge of your seat heart pounding music and action is tempered only by the underling love story (featuring Kelly McGillis as the love interest) and the human interest side of the plot. Will Maverick recover after an accident and get back to being the "best of the best"? You’ll just have to watch and see.
As stated earlier in this review, I have viewed this movie in most if not all of the formats it’s been available on including the theatrical release. This may be why I was hoping for more from this release. The DVD, although it doesn’t completely miss the mark, offers little over the Dolby Digital version of the laserdisc. The video quality may be slightly superior, but not much. It would have been nice if Paramount chosen to Animorphicly enhanced this disc to add the extra resolution. They did correctly decide to add both the widescreen and the pan & scan versions of the film on the same side of a dual layer disc, so add one point for that.
The sound is also equal to its laser counterpart and again no surprises. In years past I have used Top Gun as a sound demo disc, but alas there are certainly better movies on DVD to use for this purpose now.
And the extras? What extras? This is the one area that I would have hoped could have been added to make this DVD a "must have", but again there are none. No trailer, no commentaries, no outtakes, nada.
If you don’t already own this one on a different format or if you have worn out the copy you have, then by all means add this one to your DVD collection. Other may chose to pass.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
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