I really hope it’s not terrible.
Oh I really hope it is!
To be clear the original is terrible, but that’s what made it good.
As mentioned (at length) previously it had 80s politics and social commentary (but then it was an 80s film) and it was a very much a visually stylish film (still is) with a pretty thin plot… And the man child in me loves it for that.
Look at it this way, Michael Bay has spent the last twenty odd years unsuccessfully trying to make films that sit in the same niche and bare comparison to top gun…
Top Gun set the template for the sort of films Jerry Bruckheimer would produce for the next 30 years or so. And it set up a basic plot that would be replicated over and over (young gifted, but overconfident bloke, seeks to excel in given field, encounters setback/death of friend, has crisis of confidence, searches soul, makes a comeback just in time) it’s a trope that Cruise has revisited several times and still works… The original has a legacy that’s still going.
I do hope they’ve not made the new one too much of a worthy post millennium piece and that it is more of a slightly tongue in cheek direct sequel to the original, with the same tone and jingoistic/hyperbolic boys and their toys type fun the first one had…
That or all the bits they’ve shown in the trailer are actually intended to mislead you, and Maverick is actually now a steady 50-something bloke working as a surveyor, who upon discovering he’s about to become a Grandad has been sent into a massive spiral, and all the fighter jets and motorbikes are just the most spectacular midlife crisis ever…