TG
Top Gun – Zen is really into jets, so I thought I should let him watch the ultimate jet plane movie… Tony Scott’s Top Gun!! Full of awful acting, terrible singing, hokey characters, a bad script, weird cold war antics that never happened (did they?), the film is a B-movie from end to end that should have flopped at the box office. Somehow it didn’t – it had the star power of Tom Cruise, the like ability of Anthony Edwards, the who-cares-that-she’s-a-geek beauty of Kelly McGillis, and a great soundtrack full of anthems… before all that became cliche. The failure of Iron Eagle and other jet movies proved that either people only had the patience to watch Top Gun once, or there was tremendous loyalty to the Cruise-Scott formula (the fact that they didn’t try a sequel also showed that they didn’t dare push their luck). Great.
The movie is hard to bear if you don’t like macho boys like Cruise with a thing to prove. Tom Skerritt is great, especially for those of us who remember him in M*A*S*H (although his “I knew your dad” speeches are grotesque – perhaps Tarantino had Christopher Walken mock this in Pulp Fiction), and so is Meg Ryan, appearing here for nearly the first time, when she is still scrawny, small-chested and plain looking, spouting awesome lines like “Maverick, you big stud, take me to bed or lose me forever.”
Ultimately, there’s a lot happening in the film, which is good, and Tony Scott is an awesome director (even if he’s overshadowed by his brother Ridley). l loved Vampire’s Kiss, and other Tony Scott films. Which is more than I can say about Tom Cruise…