Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick is a heady mixture of nostalgia and rip-roaring action. Set thirty-six years after the original cultural phenomenon, the sequel sees our protagonist, Maverick, returning to the Top Gun flight academy to train the best fighter pilots in the US for the mission of their lives. Cue Kenny Loggins, cue cocky aviator one-liners

The flight sequences are breath-taking, peppered with magnetically charismatic exchanges between the pilots, and rounded off with the alpha de-briefs back at base. The social banter then ensues in the bar, and fizzes off the screen with the vibrancy of youth, pitched against Maverick’s sepia memories.

Alongside the stunning action, the film is also manipulatively enjoyable on an emotional keel, knowing exactly which heartstrings to pull and when. The guilt of Goose looms heavy over Maverick, and the past is brought into sharp present-day focus by the presence of Goose’s pilot son, Rooster. Val Kilmer’s Ice Man also makes a return that will thaw to even the coldest heart.

Ultimately, how much you enjoy Top Gun: Maverick is directly proportional to your relationship with the original film. If the original emotively evokes the friskiness of youth, optimism and California summers for you, then this incarnation is likely to put you in a sentimental tardis straight back to 1986.