Top Gun: Maverick gets an Honest Trailer, which makes light of the movie’s finale action sequence and the legacy sequel tropes the film plays into.
Top Gun: Maverick gets the Honest Trailers treatment in a new video, which highlights the film’s mindless action, Maverick’s real-life parallels to actor Tom Cruise, and the Star Wars-esque final action sequence. The Top Gun sequel was thirty years in the making and saw Cruise revisit one of his most iconic roles as the pilot Maverick. A legacy sequel in the purest form, Top Gun: Maverick builds on the 1986 hit by bringing Cruise back as Maverick and having him prepare a new generation of TOPGUN Academy fighter pilots for a precarious mission. The film requires Maverick to revisit his past in a more personal sense as well, since the son of his former wingman is one of his students.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick also features Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Glenn Powell, and Val Kilmer, who returns as Iceman. Rather than bringing back Kelly McGillis as Maverick’s love interest, Jennifer Connelly appears as Penny, Maverick’s on-again, off-again fling, referred to in the original film as “the admiral’s daughter.” Top Gun: Maverick has managed to break impressive records since it debuted in May, becoming the must-see hit of the summer and even surpassing MCU film Avengers: Infinity War in domestic gross. Currently, Top Gun: Maverick is the sixth-highest grossing film of all time domestically, and it’s still climbing. Audiences continue to praise the entertaining nature of the film, the performances of the main cast, and impressive cinematography and jaw-dropping practical effects.
Despite being an undeniably great action movie and legacy sequel, Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t avoid every legacy sequel or action movie trap. In the latest video from Screen Junkies, an Honest Trailer video brings to light some of the more amusing and bewildering choices made in the film. The video isn’t harsh with the commentary, but it definitely pokes fun at the long-awaited sequel. Check out the full video below:
Some of the more notable observations from the video include a side-by-side comparison of Top Gun: Maverick’s final mission and Star Wars film A New Hope, acknowledging that a battle staged in such a way is guaranteed to have audiences on the edge of their seats. The narrator also jokingly confuses Cruise and his character Maverick throughout the video due to the heavy-handed similarities the character shares with the actor. According to the video, the takeaway from Top Gun: Maverick is “don’t think, just do,” which is a pretty accurate read. The action movie does exactly that, and the token emotional beats of the legacy sequel manage to grapple with the passage of time in a superficial way that doesn’t invoke much of a reckoning for Cruise or Maverick.
The success of Top Gun: Maverick already has audiences clamoring for a threequel. Though many involved with the film have expressed an interest in returning for Top Gun 3, co-star Miles Teller has indicated that the decision is up to Cruise. However, Cruise has a huge slate of films lined up that will keep him busy for the foreseeable future. While this is great news for fans of the movie star, it might mean Top Gun 3 is far away. However, with 36 years between Top Gun and its sequel Maverick, the team behind the franchise has proved that the threequel could be worth the wait. If Top Gun 3 is announced, hopefully the crew will elevate on the already excellent sequel and break some new ground, avoiding another Honest Trailers-style roast.
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