Many people have said i am way too honest, don't know if that is a good thing or not?
Hope you li...
Many people have said i am way too honest, don't know if that is a good thing or not?
Hope you like reading my stuff and thank you in advance for doing so.
Member since:31.01.2001
Reviews:59
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In the opening scenes we see an ace Navy pilot flying upside down, about 18 inches above a Russian-built MiG, he then snaps a Polaroid picture of the enemy pilot, then he flips him the finger and flies off.
It's an arrogant move, but it makes the pilot (Tom Cruise), the 'man' amongst a small group of Navy personnel. And the pilot, whose code name is Maverick, is selected for the Navy's elite flying school, which is dedicated to the art of aerial dogfights. The best graduate from each class at the school is known as the Top Gun.
And there, I think, you have the basic ingredients of this film, except, of course, for three more obvious factors you get in all films about brave young pilots, these being the girl, the mystery of the fighter pilot father and the rivalry with another pilot. It turns out that Maverick's dad was a brilliant Navy pilot during the Vietnam era, until he and his plane disappeared in mysterious
circumstances, it also turns out that one of the instructors at the flying school is a pretty young woman, named Charlie (Kelly McGillis), who wants to know a lot more about how Maverick snapped that other pilot's picture.
The film settles fairly quickly into switching between ground and air scenes, and the simplest way to sum up the film is to declare the air scenes brilliant and the ground scenes predictable. This is a film that comes in two parts: It knows exactly what to do with special effects, but doesn't have a clue as to how two people in love might act and talk and think.
Aerial scenes always present a special challenge in a film. There's the danger that the audience will become slightly lost. We're used to seeing things within a frame that respects left and right, up and down, but the fighter pilot lives in a world of 360-degree turns. The remarkable achievement in the film is that it presents seven or eight aerial encounters that are so well choreographed that we can actually follow them most of the time, and the movie gives us a good feel and sense of what it might be like to be in a dogfight.
The film's first and last sequences involve encounters with enemy planes. Although the planes are MiGs, the film never mentions that there are Russian pilots flying them. The film tells you the battles take place in the Indian Ocean, and that's it. All of the aerial combat in between take place at Top Gun school, where Maverick quickly gets locked into a personal duel with another brilliant pilot, Iceman (Val Kilmer). In one combat after another, the sound track resounds, as the impressive looking planes pursue each other through the clouds, in a rather exciting manner. But the love story between Cruise and McGillis is just completely unconvincing.
Cruise and McGillis spend a lot of time exchanging unconvincing looks at each other and trading words in such a harsh manner that, you could believe they hated each other and when they finally get physical, it's all way to glamorous to ever seem 'real'.
In its other scenes on the ground, the film is just full of old clichés. Example, who would have thought, that Maverick's commanding officer at the flying school is the only man who knows what happened to his father in Vietnam? And is a big big shock when Maverick's best friend dies in his arms? And finally is there any originality when Maverick as a result of his best friend's death, agonises as to whether he should carry on flying without him?. The answer, no to all three.
Performances are mixed. Tom Cruise, while convincing as the 'pilot with attitude' Maverick in the aerial battles, his sparkle with McGillis is non exsistant. Anthony Edwards (of ER fame) is good as Goose, Maverick's best friend, as is Meg Ryan as Carole Goose's wife. Val Kilmer is also good as the 'by the book' Ice. Like Cruise, McGillis is good as the instructor, Charlie, but lacks imagination in the 'love' scenes. The rest of the cast is pretty good to make an all round pretty well balanced cast.
The trouble with the film is, the good parts are so good and the bad parts are so relentless. The aerial battles are great to watch, but the sub plots are just to obvious. Overall probably worth a watch just for the aerial battles.
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Advantages: Great fun, good flight scenes, chance to see famous actors before they were famous Disadvantages: Cruise is just too cheesy for words, romance doesn't work too well
CaptainDisaster 06.05.2005 (06.05.2005)
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