I really hope it’s not terrible.
Allow me to reassure you, it’s going to be absolutely terrible.
Honestly, the first one is actually terrible as a film, but if you’re a teenager who like jets and motorbikes or greased up men with abs then it’s 2 hours of great visuals sort of held together with a flimsy plot.
This one will be worse in every measurable, my predictions:
It will be hamstrung by having to try to play homage to the gun-ho, Alpha male characters and style of the 1980s original whilst being compatible with 2020 sensibilities – they’re wildly opposing and in at least one scene an young character with any many 2020 points as possible will have an argument with patsy character from the 80s making them look like the insecure, intolerant dinosaur that they are. This scene will server a purpose for the younger audience (who will be carrying the Cruise-less franchise further) to know it’s for them, and not for their sad old parents generation. This will be jarring and unpleasant for older audience member who will see more of themselves in the Dinosaur than the 20-something Character.
Most of the fans of the original are now in their 40s or 50s the ‘cynical years’ we’ll all wade into this with a PhD in aerospace engineering’s worth of ‘knowledge’ of fighter jets and be confronted by CGI F-18s that fly like tie-fighters and X-wings.
To try to appease the Cynical crowd there will be a scene involving an expert, a real brain the size of Mars type who tell ‘Mav’ that he’s a dinosaur and his old human controlled jet is out dated and a drone is better because of all these ‘real world’ scientific reasons, but then ‘because Maverick’ he’d prove Mars head wrong.
Val Kilmer is in it, he made some great films in the 80s and 90s, but he’s had a very rough ride in the last few years, he hasn’t made anything decent in 15 years and it’s 25 since he was consistently good in anything. He looks a bit of a wreck these days, he ain’t Ice Man anymore.
This film has been stuck in development hell for 20 years. When they first started to work on the sequel it was going to be released 15 years after the original and one of the sticking points was “has too much time passed?” – the version that coming has been in development for 10 years due to the sad death of Tony Scott. It will have the finger prints of dozens of cooks on it.
As much as it’s technically a sequel it’ll also be a re-boot as Goose’s Son will be constantly at odds with Maverick. Maverick will move into Vipers roll, trying to calm down Goose Jnr with tales of his father, the sticking point being that whilst Maverick was a fresh faced young (24) Captain, Goose Jnr will be nearly 40 in 2020.
What are they going to do for an enemy? dropping laser guided bombs on schools in the Middle East isn’t very heroic, Russia? really with diplomatic ties between the US and Russia as bad as they are, are they really going to spin out a Cold War re-match now? It was flimsy at best in the first one. China? They’re the biggest export market for US films now. They’ll either try for the rouge Bond villain type, or find some non-violent plot for a film about fighter jets.
Still, I reckon 3 beers and it’ll be a laugh.
