Controversial yet objectively factual opinion: Anthony Edwards is hotter than Tom Cruise in Top Gun. First of all, the mustache? WORKS. Second of all, he’s fun! Third of all, Maverick is such a desperate, narcissistic, posturing, alienating, twerpy little prince that I find myself disorientingly at odds with a former self who long ago considered Tom Cruise to be attractive. Who was she? That woman who could look at a picture of young Tom and not flash immediately to this jittery rat terrier with a barely contained rage problem, a monomaniacal fixation on personal glory at the expense of the safety of everyone around him, and an approach to women that can charitably be described as Biff-esque? I don’t know her.1 Fourth of all, Maverick’s hair is bad! It needs to be EITHER SHORTER OR LONGER.2
Maverick is the villain of Top Gun.
I hadn’t seen Top Gun as an adult, and what I found watching it in my thirties was equal parts bloodcurdling and blood…emulsifying. Like, yes, watching movie stars in their electric youth will never not be life-affirming, as close to the pure beating heart of art as you can get, even if they are just yelling nonsense about planes, and the unapologetic homoeroticism is, frankly, woke as hell (?). Also, Meg Ryan is so good in this! So louche and alive! But, on the other hand, like I said, if he were a real person I would shoot Maverick with a crossbow.
Maverick is a navy pilot who’s out flying around with his friends in their planes when they encounter some…Russians? Who are the enemies in this movie? They never say! Maverick can’t shoot this son of a bitch, so he decides to see if he can have a lil fun with him. He goes upside down and takes a Polaroid giving the son of a bitch the finger. Dude, that jet is really expensive. How about you be a maverick in your own plane that you buy with your own allowance?
Meanwhile, Maverick’s wingman, Cougar, is buggin’. He almost got missiled by one of the enemies, and now he’s too freaked out to land, which, is that a real disease? The navy’s take appears to be, “We’ll just let him fly around until he runs out of fuel and crashes into the sea, oh well,” (???) but Maverick goes against orders and escorts Cougar back down to the aircraft carrier. In the first of about infinity times that Maverick breaks the rules and is rewarded for it, he and his friend Goose get picked to go to TOPGUN, an elite fighter pilot combat weapons academy training fly gun bad boy bang bang school in San Diego.
Maverick is so excited about San Diego that he rides his motorcycle next to the fighter plane runway and he is racing the plane and the plane takes off and Maverick does a big fist pump!! Yeah!!!! Boys rock!
At TOPGUN, Maverick and Goose meet their instructor, Viper (Tom Skerrit), their nemesis, Iceman (Val Kilmer), and all the other guys in the program: Sniffer, Stinky, Stumpy, Candle, Bandit, Bratwurst, Rapunzel, LilHorsie, Dustpan, Corncob, Marge, PeePeeBoy, Flipper, and Bingbong. Maverick is pretty arrogant, but Viper likes that in a pilot (WHY?). Maverick is positive that he will be the number-one top gun (WHY?).
Goose: The list is long but distinguished.
Bingbong: Yeah, so’s my johnson.
I want to hate it, but “Yeah, so’s my johnson” is a real workhorse of a phrase. It goes with anything, like using florals as a neutral. Try it!
They go out to a bar to bother women—“this is what I call a target-rich environment”—and Maverick spots a bangin’ blonde he can’t wait to alienate with his long johnson. He and Goose ambush her and sing, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” extremely aggressively into her face while the whole bar watches and laughs, and I tell you I would legitimately fucking catch on fire from embarrassment, but she’s just like, “Oh, you GUUUUUUYSSSSS,” as though this is a normal-adjacent thing to do. “I love that song! I’ve never seen that approach.” Truly praise be 2 the cinema for giving me this lifetime of extremely lifelike and believable female human characters!
Maverick’s like, “I’m Maverick” (why would you introduce yourself as your call sign!?!? She’s not a PLANE), and she’s like, “I’m Charlie,” and then she just kind of laughs at him and goes off to the little girls’ weewee room. And he follows her in there to ask her out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He’s so gross!
The next day, at plane Hogwarts, they’re having their first lesson with a civilian contractor who’s there to teach them about how planes stay up, and—OH SHIT. BATHROOM CHARLIE IS THE CIVILIAN CONTRACTOR. Maverick, did you sexually harass the civilian contractor AGAIN!?!? This happens every time we go to a new fighter boy pew pew school!
They discuss Maverick’s upside-down Polaroid maneuver, and Iceman asks, VALIDLY, “Who was covering Cougar while you were showboating?” Maverick is like, “Cougar was doing just fine,” but we know he wasn’t! He almost crashed and died and then literally quit the navy! Why is nobody but Iceman fact-checking Maverick here!?
We’re clearly supposed to resent Iceman for trying to stifle Maverick’s unbelievably bitching bad-boy flying skills in the name of “SAFETY” and “REGARD FOR OTHERS” (boooooo!), but, you know what? I actually think being exceptional is bad. It’s dangerous and unfriendly and it prevents us from building robust systems of aid and care. It precludes forethought and planning (oh, a hero will save us!), and it undercuts accountability when talented people do bad things (oh, but he’s so special). My Norwegian mom always told me, “You’re not special—never think you’re better than anybody else,” and I’m glad she did! Now I listen to other people and treat them with respect and wear a mask at the grocery store! Exceptionalism is a grift!
Maverick defeats one of his other instructors, Jester, in a sortie exercise, but breaks the rules of engagement, which kind of seems like it should not count as winning? In celebration, he buzzes the tower and makes the tower man spill his coffee. Maverick loves to buzz the tower. (That’s what he calls it when he shaves his pubes.)
Iceman confronts Maverick afterward for breaking the rules, being reckless, and abandoning other pilots to do whatever he thinks will get him the most attention.
Iceman: You’re everyone’s problem. That’s because every time you go up in the air you’re unsafe. I don’t like you because you’re dangerous.
Wow, some very clear and constructive communication there from Iceman!
Maverick: That’s right. Ice…man. I am dangerous.
MAVERICK. IT IS BAD TO BE DANGEROUS. YOU ARE FLYING A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR WARPLANE PRESUMABLY CHUNKY-STUFFED WITH WEAPONS THAT COULD KILL LOTS OF PEOPLE AND POTENTIALLY CAUSE A GLOBAL WAR IF USED IMPROPERLY.
HOW IS ICEMAN THE VILLAIN OF THIS MOVIE???????
BECAUSE HE LIKES SAFETY???????????????????????
THIS IS HOW AMERICA BECAME A HOTSPOT OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC.
Because my generation was raised to believe not just that safety is for dweebs but that it’s EVIL! Maverick is a full psycho and would definitely be at the “reopen America” protests because he wants the RIGHT to get his b-hole waxed even if he isn’t actually GOING to go get his b-hole waxed and even though he knows that many thousands more marginalized and high-risk people will die and many b-hole waxing businesses will ultimately fail because you cannot sustain an economy on a handful of slobbering fascists who feel the need, the need for a Jamba Juice. Goose alludes to some dark past involving Maverick’s dad, who was also a fighter pilot: “Every time we go up there, it’s like you’re flyin’ against a ghost.” And I’m sorry, but that is not an excuse! Go to therapy! You can be in a men’s group with Snape!
After several days of doing heavy sex innuendo during class, the civilian contractor invites Maverick over for dinner at 5:00 p.m. But before dinner, it’s………beach volleyball time!
This is the famous volleyball scene, where all the guys—Goose, Maverick, Iceman, Pickle, Scabby, Shredder, Splinter, Bebop, Rocksteady, Dave, and Cornholio—oil up and spike the hogskin for a few days. Ohhhhhh, do I ever I wish I were that volleyball! Yeah, hit me with the tops of both of your wrists, boys! Unghhhh!
Maverick is late to dinner because he volleyballed too hard-core, but when he tells her he’s “just gonna take a quick shower” (it’s HER HOUSE!), she’s like, “No, I’m hungry, and I prefer you very wet from volleyball on my furniture.” A parrot watches. They decide to date even though she’s his teacher and, let’s be honest, reads…fifteen years older? Which, to be clear, is only because Tom Cruise looks a full Dennis the Menace twelve here.
In class, Charlie uses one of Maverick’s dumb maneuvers as an example of what NOT to do while flying a plane, so he flounces off angrily to his motorbikey. She tries to explain to him that she’s still gotta be his teacher, but he’s like VROOM VROOM VROOM away into the twilight! She chases him in her car, and they jeopardize many lives. When she finally catches up, she insists, “My review of your flight performance was right on,” (YES), but then admits that she sees some real genius in his flying but she couldn’t say that in there because she’s afraid that they’ll see that she’s falling for him. UGH! ET TU, CHARLIE!?
Indeed, it is incredibly inappropriate, and as we have just seen, dangerous, that you are falling for your student! You already can’t give him necessary and valid feedback on his flying because of his lacy-crispy-wafer-thin ego! This is bad!
Then they do it. Sex.
Another day, another flying exercise where Maverick abandons his wingman to chase individual glory because he thinks he’s the only person who matters. Maverick and Goose feel the need, the need for speed, but I wish they would feel the need for weed and maybe take a nap once in a while?
Iceman once again confronts Maverick for being dangerous and foolish and is once again correct.
Goose’s wife, Meg Ryan, comes to town and they all have a great party and get wasted and Goose plays “Great Balls of Fire” on the piano. Meg Ryan tells Charlie all about Maverick’s many previous erotique lovers, but assures her that he is extremely hot for teacher now and, yes, don’t worry, you should definitely trust that guy! He’s absolutely not the exact floor model of a dude who would fat-shame you while you’re pregnant and then bang your couples counselor because he’s a “super-feeler.” For sure marry this unhinged tween!
It’s the next day. They’re out flying again. Something goes wrong. (I forget.) Maverick and Goose start to crash. They have to eject. But Goose’s hatch thingy doesn’t detach properly and he blasts straight into the dome exactly like a goose flying into a plate glass window! They parachute into the sea, but Maverick can tell that Goose already died. It was Goose’s last honk.
If only he had stuck to boogie-woogie piano.
Maverick is really sad. Meg Ryan tells him, “God, he loved flying with you, Maverick…He’d have flown anyway without you. He’d have hated it, but he’d have done it.” What? Why would he have done it if he hated it? What???
Maverick flies bad now. He’s scared. He blames himself for Goose’s death. He fights with his new partner. All the while, the wretched villain, Iceman, looks on with an expression that says, “How can we build some more productive teamwork strategies?”
Iceman approaches Maverick, just to twist the knife: “I’m sorry about Goose. Everybody liked him.” Curse you, Iceman! From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee!
The villain of this movie literally only says kind and responsible things the entire time.
Maverick decides he’s going to drop out of TOPGUN, and, oh no? It’s hard to care about the loss of one insubordinate and only slightly above-average pilot when I have no idea who the navy is actually fighting or what’s at stake. Are we in a war? What do fighter pilots actually DO? Am I just supposed to be sad abstractly at the squandering of a great plane-flying talent? Because I’m not. Charlie takes a job in Washington and moves away. Maverick goes to see Viper and gets the classified scoop on his dead dad. I didn’t pay attention to what it was. Viper tells him, “You’re a lot like he was, only better, and worse.” (Thanks?)
It’s TOPGUN graduation day. Maverick shows up super late like an asshole and basically misses it. Iceman wins number-one top gun, AS HE SHOULD, and then all of a sudden there’s some sort of…enemy…plane…situation…! I don’t know what the story line of this movie is!
They have to do a real fighter plane mission like big boys. Maverick gets assigned to fly with Merlin, replacing Goose, and I gotta say I think it’s really nice that they let you have a friend go in the plane with you! Not sure how Merlin’s big pointy hat is going to fit inside his helmet but NOT! MY! PURVIEW! Iceman expresses some concerns to Viper about letting Maverick pilot a $30 million murder plane right now, and even that is totally reasonable! Maverick has fucked up every single fucking thing, his best friend just died, and he couldn’t even show up on time to graduation!
Viper sends Maverick out anyway, and they beat the bad guys (?) (or bad girls—women can be bad!) because Maverick finally learned ONE FUCKING THING, which is not to leave his wingman. Honk honk. Then, at the end, he buzzes the tower again and makes the tower man spill his coffee AGAIN! That’s what you get for stealing Merlin’s tower!!!!!
Iceman and Maverick have a tender moment, and then Charlie comes back from DC to be Little Miss Mrs. Maverick. Then Maverick emotionally drops Goose’s necklace into the ocean at the end, and in conclusion, I just have to say, FUCK YOU, MAN!! GIVE THAT TO HIS KID!!!!!!!
If they recut Top Gun with Maverick edited out, it would be a gorgeous short film about sunsets and friendship. Petition to recut real life with all Mavericks edited out.
RATING: 5/10 DVDs of The Fugitive.