Brandishing an idealized image of the military that Hollywood hasn’t embraced since that era, Top Gun is a product of the 80s that casts the arrogant flyboys of the US Navy as lone wolf renegades who play by their own rules. You couldn’t make Top Gun today, because it lacks any sort of cynicism or tongue-in-cheek approach to its subject matter. Not once does it question itself when it uses lines like “Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash” or goes over the top with ridiculous stunts that would have any pilot stripped of their rank and kicked to the curb. This is a film that holds pilots aloft and stares up at them, with eyes full of admiration, as a Kenny Loggins soundtrack blares in the background. It’s cheesy, it lacks any real plot or character development, and it makes countless jumps in logic. It may be a classic but it’s not one that has withstood the test of time, and with its 25th Anniversary Blu-ray release, it’s pretty clear that the aspect that’s aged best is its cinematography and camera work.
Lt. Pete Mitchell (Tom Cruise) rarely ever uses his civilian name, because virtually everyone he knows calls him by his call sign “Maverick”. When he’s out at the bar with his co-pilot “Goose” (Anthony Edwards), gunning his motorcycle for an 80s style booty call with his love interest and flight instructor Charlie (Kelly McGillis), and exchanging verbal parries with his Top Gun flying school rival Iceman (Val Kilmer), he’s always the epitome of the suave, charismatic pilot who can do no wrong. If he does do wrong, he just waits, and eventually the other characters will come around and agree he did the only thing he could, even if it was 100% irresponsible. This is Maverick’s life, it’s nigh idyllic as even when the worst consequences shake him from his cool, he can jump back in when his fellow pilots need him most. If ever there was an ideal poster boy for a pilot recruitment program, it’s Maverick, and as luck would have it, he happens to be a character in a film that barely qualifies as anything above a professionally directed military recruitment video.
This is military propaganda at its most polished with Tony Scott at the helm and Tom Cruise in a role that would come to define the only character he would willingly play: the renegade winner (with his turn in Magnolia being the main exception, depending on how you view that sexaholic character). Everything about Top Gun glorifies military service as an odd amalgam of oddly homoerotic, machismo egotism where the guy gets the girl and saves the day. Forget what you think you know about working hard and providing a future for your children, the real American dream (according to Top Gun) is serving your country while strapped into a flying metal deathtrap with missiles under your wings, a wingman that always has your back, and a beautiful, intelligent girl just a few blocks away. Yet, it’s still a fun film to watch every once in awhile even if the military dialogue can be painfully stereotypical and the plot really just consists of empty talking between three different aerial combat scenes wherein Maverick proves he’s great, he loses his shit, and then proves he’s great again. If there’s a romantic development or emotional breakdown in there, it has little impact on the plot beyond making it look like an attempt was made at storytelling, but we’re not fooled. The film’s true objective is to show pilot camaraderie and how awesome it is to blow up enemy fighter jets.
Top Gun may be an empty shell of a film, but it still looks surprisingly stunning, and with the Blu-ray remastering its borderline beautiful at times. Tony Scott succeeded in capturing some brilliant flight sequences as well as some visually divine scenes of the jets against cloudy blue skies. I confess to not having watched a copy of Top Gun since the days of VHS, but Paramount has done the film justice with this Blu-ray transfer.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
You’ll find a lot of extras once you’re done watching the film on Blu-ray or via the included digital copy, but most (if not all) come from previous DVD releases. The audio commentary features Scott, Co-Screenwriter Jack Epps, Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and a couple of naval experts looking over the film, but it honestly feels like there were too many cooks in the kitchen and the commentary is a bit overloaded. A 6-part documentary covers the making of the film, tackling different aspects of the production, and if you skip between the parts and the storyboards included in the extras, you get a pretty good idea of the film’s realization from paper to film. The last true featurette is a look at the real Top Gun school that inspired the film. Then you have four music videos (yeah, Kenny Loggins!), a much more basic behind-the-scenes featurette (which should have been deleted once the 6-parter was on here), TV spots, interviews with Tom Cruise, and a clip of the cast undergoing survival training.
"Top Gun" is on sale August 30, 2011 and is rated PG. Action, Drama. Directed by Tony Scott. Written by Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr.. Starring Anthony Edwards, Kelly Mcgillis, Tom Cruise, Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer.
