Top Gun: Maverick

Planes. They are big and fast and make loud noises and the ones used by the United States military can shoot things. This was the central conceit of Top Gun, a deeply 80s action movie about said big, fast, loud planes shooting things for your viewing pleasure and not much else. Despite a critical panning Top Gun became a mainstay in many a dad’s list of movies he would rattle off to demonstrate how far movies had fallen since his time at the theater thanks to its practical effects, bombastic action set pieces, and unashamedly ostentatious characters. Whatever its objective merits (of which I am decidedly skeptical), Top Gun proved popular enough to warrant a nod from Hollywood’s indefatigable sequel generator, and that’s how we got Top Gun Maverick, an Oscar nominated 2022 movie directed by Joseph Kosinski that was even more of a silver bullet than its predecessor. Top Gun Maverick was enormously popular, an old school, crowd pleasing blockbuster whose grandiose sensibilities and jaw-dropping practical fighter sequences were just the shot in the arm the film industry needed as it was shaking the dust off after its long stint in quarantine. Today, then, join the Magellans as they give their thoughts on a sequel to a movie they have absolutely no nostalgia for, which, according to the sacred texts of the church of hipster film bros, makes them uniquely able to assess this movie’s quality. I feel the need . . . the need to start the episode!