I feel the neeeed....the need for cheeeeeesee......

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Star –Tom Cruise My Rating *** Genre – Action Run Time – 2 hr 10 Minutes. Certificate – 12a Country – U.S.A Awards – 8 Nominations = = = = = = = = = = = = = Cinema has invented a new genre called ‘Retro Nostalgia’, sequels to cool 70 & 80s movies that arrive thirty years later and attract the audience that grew up with them, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and Matrix Resurrections etc... Anyone over 50 purred when Hans Solo and Luke Skywalker returned in The Force Awakens (2015), or cringed at the all female Ghostbusters movie. The films remind you of a time when you thought you were young and handsome and wanted to be Tom Cruise or Kelly McGillis and then you look in the mirror today and that’s no longer something you can cling on to. Tom Cruise, of course, has hardly aged as he is not allowed to. Cinema is our dreams. They have a responsibility. Jennifer Connolly, the female lead here, was my big crush in my 20s but she still looks 35, even in 4k. How do they do it? The movie was delayed by Covid and is directed by Joseph Kasinski, who worked with Tom in the underrated Oblivion movie, and did another one of those Retro Nostalgia ones - The Tron Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick only his fifth movie directed in 12 years. ===Plot=== Its modern day and highly decorated Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Cruise) is kicking around as a test pilot for an outside contractor trying to break mach 10 in a new era prototype stealth plane when he is called back to Top Gun for active service for the Navy by Rear Admiral Chester Cain (Ed Harris). Admiral Simpson (John Hamm) has a top secret mission for Maverick and its very risky, Maverick assigned to train the best of the best young pilots and navigators for the mission, but not fly it, on the personal recommendation of Admiral ‘Ice Man’ Kasanski (Val Kilmer). One of his recruit is Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw (Miles Teller), son of Gooseman, history between the two, of course. The odds are not good and the target deep behind enemy lines and heavily defended, the hothead cocky recruits short of combat experience and time running out to execute it. Sound familiar ? ===Results=== It’s cheesy, corny, comforting action packed popcorn fun as Maverick tries to drag us back to the glorious 1980s of power ballads, mirrored shades and leather aviator jackets. It builds to a big and spectacular crescendo after an hour that’s worth watching the film for that alone after a less exhilarating hour of nostalgia and homage to the previous Top Gun movie, and other movies, the Stars War style raid deliberate, you would think. Val Kilmer is not in great shape these days so does the lazy Marlon Brando thing from Apocalypse Now playing what looks like a Bond villain whilst Jennifer Connolly provides the unneeded love interest to stick on the back of the motorbike again to recreate one of many iconic scenes from the original. Meg Ryan couldn’t appear in it due to plot issues rather than reluctance. It does feel like the director lacked confidence to make his movie here and resorted to cliché. It flies along, if you can excuse the pun, and you never feel you have been taken for a ride with a simplistic sequel, which you have, of course, but you just don’t care. I loved Top Gun back in 1985 for vacuous reasons around my own personality of not being very serious about life and this movie not chasing Oscars to reflect what it’s trying to do - sit there and enjoy. The peripheral cast is much more diverse than the first film to represent and attract its target world-wide audience and the enemy non-descript so not to offend that particular country. The soundtrack is somewhat weak as that was a key part of these action movies back in the 1980s with the original Top Gun soundtrack top of the US charts for 5 weeks, and seeding an Oscar winning song. Lady Gaga is the main name here, not really the type of music for the film’s main male demographic target. Trust me, Soft Rock and Hair Metal was the thing back then.# I enjoyed it though and a very cinematic experience of old and not too much CGI so if you can still avoid it on home cinema and catch it in the multiplex instead I would go for the latter.