Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Some sequels arrive with a quiet confidence, and some arrive with an F/A-18 Super Hornet at low altitude. Top Gun: Maverick is firmly in the second category. Thirty-six years after Tony Scott's original turned Tom Cruise into a global superstar and the United States Navy's best recruiting tool (the service reportedly stationed officers at cinema lobbies to catch interested viewers on the way out), Paramount and Skydance brought Pete Mitchell back to the screen. The original, which you can read Macca's thoughts on over at our Top Gun (1986) review, was always a product of its moment: glossy, sun-drenched, more music video than film in places. A follow-up had been talked about for years, but various rewrites and Cruise's famously exacting standards kept it grounded. When it finally landed in 2022 (delayed further by the pandemic), it became one of the highest-grossing films of the year and the biggest domestic release of Cruise's entire career. Not bad for a man who, by Hollywood logic, should have been put out to pasture a decade ago.
Joseph Kosinski stepped into the director's chair, and it was something of a coming-of-age moment for him. His previous work, including Oblivion (2013) and Tron: Legacy (2010), had always been polished but unremarkable, technically accomplished films that struggled to find real emotional traction. Here, working from a script developed across several years and multiple writers, he found his footing. Cruise's involvement went well beyond simply showing up on set: he pushed hard for practical, in-camera aerial photography, meaning the actors genuinely flew in the back seats of military jets during production. The result is a film that feels physically present in a way that most modern action cinema simply does not. There is weight to the G-forces and sweat on the visors because, to a considerable extent, those things were real. The budget, reportedly somewhere north of 170 million dollars, is visible on screen in almost every frame.
The cast assembled around Cruise is worth a moment's consideration. Miles Teller, who carries a good deal of the film's emotional load as Rooster, had already shown real range in films like Whiplash (2014). Jennifer Connelly, an actress who earned her reputation in films a world away from blockbuster territory (see our review of A Beautiful Mind for a reminder of what she can do with the right material), brings a grounded warmth to her role. Jon Hamm does reliable work as the sceptical authority figure, and Bashir Salahuddin provides some welcome levity. The supporting cast of younger pilots, while not always individually memorable, functions well as an ensemble. And then there is Val Kilmer, returning as Iceman after an absence from the franchise spanning the entire gap between the two films. His presence here carries a particular poignancy given his very public health struggles in the years prior to filming, and the film handles it with more care than you might expect from a production of this scale.
It is an absolute statistical anomaly for a legacy sequel to not just match its predecessor, but to utterly eclipse it. Yet, here we are with Joseph Kosinski’s 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, a film that manages to be superior to the 1986 original in practically every conceivable way.
Tom Cruise returns as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, dragged back into the cockpit to train a fresh batch of elite pilots for a mission that borders on the suicidal. But what makes this work so brilliantly isn't just the sheer spectacle; it’s the emotional baggage Maverick carries. The crushing guilt over the death of his best friend, Goose, is now projected directly onto Goose’s son, Rooster (Miles Teller), creating a wonderfully tense, character-driven friction that grounds the whole enterprise.
I was genuinely struck by how the film handles its action. For a movie famous for its dogfights, there is actually only one major combat sequence in the entire runtime. The rest is dedicated to the grueling, high-stakes training regimen, and honestly, it goes to show just how exciting a genuine, well-paced story can be without relying on a constant barrage of weightless CGI explosions. The aerial sequences are breathtaking, but it’s the quieter moments that truly anchor the picture. There is a deeply touching, unscripted-feeling scene between Cruise and Val Kilmer (who was genuinely battling throat cancer during production) that adds a profound, real-world weight to the nostalgia. It’s a beautiful, respectful nod that caught me completely off guard.
The overarching narrative is fairly predictable. You know the beats of this kind of military underdog story before they even happen. However, Kosinski and his writers are smart enough to throw a couple of genuinely nice curveballs right towards the climax, shaking up the formula just enough to keep you on your toes before bringing it all full circle back to that comforting, familiar predictability. My only real gripe lies with the romantic subplot. The romance with Jennifer Connelly’s character did absolutely nothing for me. It felt tacked on, and I firmly believe the movie could have excised that entire segment and remained the exact same, highly effective film.
At its core, this is a straightforward, adrenaline-fuelled blockbuster that knows exactly what it wants to be and executes it with near-flawless precision. It respects its legacy without being held hostage by it, delivering a cinematic experience that is as emotionally resonant as it is viscerally thrilling. Kosinski and Cruise have crafted a rare, triumphant return to form that proves practical effects and a solid emotional core will always beat a green screen. It is a cracking piece of mainstream cinema.
Top Gun: Maverick sits in an interesting position in the broader landscape of legacy sequels, a subgenre that has produced as many disappointments as genuine successes. Cruise, to his credit, has form in this area: the Mission: Impossible series has demonstrated that a franchise can grow more interesting as it ages, provided the people involved are willing to take it seriously rather than simply cashing in. Kosinski, for his part, seems to have found his register here in a way that his earlier work never quite managed. Whether that translates to future projects remains to be seen, but as a single film, this is the kind of mainstream entertainment that is rarer than it ought to be: something made with craft, care, and a clear sense of what it is trying to achieve. They don't always stick the landing. This one did.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2026-07-27
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Top Gun: Maverick (2022) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Paramount+ Amazon Channel
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Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · Paramount Plus Premium · Paramount Plus Essential · Paramount+ Amazon Channel
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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