Top Gun: Maverick

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Tom Cruise flies F/A-18 Hornets and smiles and waves at Commie Landers while playing touch football.

Okay, a bit more detail. Top Gun: Maverick is a 2022 American action drama film directed by Joseph Kosinski. The sequel to Top Gun, it stars Tom Cruise, who reprises his role as United States Navy aviator Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.

WARNING: This film involves extensive Late Arrival Spoilers for the previous film. Read on at your own risk!

36 years after the previous film, now-Captain Maverick is a test pilot who has dodged promotion to the admiralty in order to keep flying. After the record-setting test-to-destruction of a hypersonic prototype plane, he is reassigned back to TOPGUN. His mission: Train a group of elite pilots to carry out an unprecedentedly risky strike against a rogue nation's underground uranium enrichment plant. This is made even more complicated by the fact that among the trainees is Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of his late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, which tears open old wounds. In addition, he must grapple with rekindled feelings for old flame Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly).

Tropes used in Top Gun: Maverick include:

• AKA-47: The enemy "fifth-generation fighters" are quite obviously Su-57s, but are never explicitly referred to as such.
• Aborted Arc: In the opening act, Maverick pushes the Darkstar to and then past Mach 10 in order to secure its funding in the face of the threat of getting cancelled in favour of drones. The question of manned vs unmanned planes never comes up after that, not even as a throwaway to justify why the strike can't be carried out using drones.
• Airstrike Impossible: The strike on the plant requires two teams of two planes to fly low through a canyon lest they be fired on by SAMs, and do so in 2 minutes 30 seconds or less or else enemy fighters will intercept. They then need to climb a hill and dive into a deep depression where the first pair needs to destroy a bunker, while the second drops bombs through a now-exposed channel to destroy the plant proper. Then they need to pull 9+Gs on a steep climb to crest a mountain and egress, evading SAMs as they do so. Maverick warns that someone might not survive despite their best efforts.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When reviewing what errors were made during training, Maverick tells the trainees not to explain as they would to superiors, but to the families of the teammates who would have died had the mistakes happened during the real mission. No one can offer a good excuse in the face of that.
• Ascended Extra: Penny was only briefly alluded to in the first film.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Maverick and Rooster slip into an enemy airbase by acting like they belong in the midst of the chaos it's experiencing. They later try the same with a pair of enemy planes. This one isn't so successful.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: The enemy nation's nearby airbase just happens to have a working F-14 around, which Maverick and Rooster hijack.
• The Cavalry:
  • Maverick is cornered by an enemy helicopter when it gets destroyed by Rooster disobeying orders to go back for him.
  • Maverick and Rooster are being intercepted by an enemy fighter with no more ammo left and it looks like they're doomed. Then Hangman destroys it.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The enemy nation just happens to have two actually three fifth-generation fighters that were already in the air before the runway denial missile attacks.
  • The nearby enemy airbase just happens to have a armed and fuelled F-14 sitting around in a hangar ready for takeoff.
• Faceless Goons: The enemy nation's pilots use blackened visors this time too, while the visors on our heroes are transparent.
• Last Request: The real reason why Rooster was held back was because Carole told Maverick to so as to not let him Turn Out Like His Father.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The strike is accompanied by a whole lot of Tomahawk cruise missiles targeting the nearby enemy airbase to destroy its runway and prevent reinforcements from that end. Why those missiles aren't used to directly attack the target is never brought up.
• Meaningful Funeral: Iceman succumbs to his terminal illness and Maverick and the pilots attend his funeral.
• Mood Whiplash: Maverick and Penny are spending the night together at Penny's home because her daughter is supposed to be out till late and they start having an emotional talk about Goose. Then Penny comes home early and it becomes awkwardly funny as Maverick has to escape because Penny doesn't want to set a bad example. Then it becomes sad again when he gets caught anyway and the daughter tells him not to break the mother's heart again.
• Reality Ensues: Maverick has thus far avoided getting kicked out of the Navy despite his antics thanks to Iceman covering for him. Eventually, after Iceman's death, when he takes a plane on an unauthorised flight to show that the low-level ingress in the required timeframe is actually possible despite the other pilots' hitherto failure, Cyclone makes clear to him that he'll be reaching the end of his career in this mission, whether it's through dying in enemy airspace or getting grounded after his return.
• Rock Beats Laser: It is repeatedly emphasised that the F/A-18 is no match for the enemy fifth-generation fighters, so of course an older-generation plane ends up having to get into a scrap with the new hotness.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Carole died offscreen in between the two films. Iceman succumbs to his terminal illness shortly after his last meeting with Maverick.
• Survival Mantra: Maverick is still saying "Talk to me, Goose" despite the latter being dead for more than 30 years.