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 (Oblivion, TRON: Legacy). The sequel to Top Gun, it stars Tom Cruise, who reprises his role as United States Navy aviator Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Also returning is Val Kilmer as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky.

WARNING: This film involves extensive Late Arrival Spoilers for the previous film, which will not be marked here. 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.
Anonymous Ringer: The rogue nation being targeted is never named. Its having F-14s suggests Iran, but only Russia has Su-57s currently. The presence of riverine snow just adds to the confusion.
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.
Call Back:
- When Rooster plays "Great Balls of Fire" on a piano, Maverick has a flashback to Goose doing the same thing decades ago and his last moments.
- When Maverick first goes on a training flight with the trainees, he speaks to them like the captain of a commercial airliner. Near the end, after Hangman saves Maverick and Rooster from an enemy plane, the saviour speaks to the saved similarly.
Casting Gag: WSO Bob is played by Lewis Pullman, whose father Bill played a former fighter pilot in Independence Day.
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.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Charlie doesn't come back from the first film and isn't mentioned again apart from a brief unvoiced appearance in an archival footage flashback, leaving the circumstances of her separation from Maverick a mystery.
Coming in Hot: With lost front landing gear and failing engines, Maverick and Rooster need to land into the carrier's barricade.
Contrived Coincidence:
- The enemy nation just happens to have two fifth-generation fighters actually three 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 that was missed by the earlier Macross Missile Massacre.
Doing It for the Art: All the aerial sequences were done with real planes, with VFX overlay only for the types that couldn't be obtained in actuality. While the cast didn't actually fly F/A-18s, they were indeed serving as passengers experiencing real G-forces, unlike the first film where only Cruise could pull it off. Before doing so, they had to undergo flight and water survival training. All in the service of maximum practical effects in a day and age where most other filmmakers would have phoned it in with CGI. Ironically, director Kosinski was mostly known for CGI-heavy work before this.
Drone of Dread: An ominous droning occurs whenever an enemy unit appears.
Faceless Goons: The enemy nation's pilots use blackened visors this time too, while the visors on our heroes are transparent.
Internal Homage:
- The film opens with the same words as the first one, as well as carrier flight ops set to "Top Gun Anthem" and "Highway to the Danger Zone".
- Maverick gets tossed out of a pub by the trainees, who are mortified when he shows up the next day as their new instructor. This mirrors Maverick's attempt to woo Charlie only to learn that she's an instructor in the first film.
- Rooster plays "Great Balls of Fire" on a piano just like his father did decades ago while also wearing a print shirt over a white underlayer.
Ironic Echo: At the end of their meeting, Iceman asks Maverick once more who's the better pilot. This time, Maverick sadly tells him not to spoil the moment. Left unsaid is that it might be the last time they see each other.
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. Maverick doesn't want to let him know that because it's enough that Rooster resents him without also resenting his mother.
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.
Misguided Missile: A missile fired by a fifth-generation fighter is led into its damaged but still airborne wingman.
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 the daughter comes home early and it becomes awkwardly funny as Maverick has to escape because Penny says she doesn't want to set a bad example, only for him to get caught anyway. Then it becomes sad once more when the daughter tells him not to break the mother's heart again.
No, I Am Behind You: In the final battle, this is done thrice. A fifth-generation fighter starts out on the tail of Maverick and Rooster, who then get behind it. Then it uses a Herbst maneuver to get behind them. Then they get behind it one last time.
One Bullet Left: The second fifth-generation fighter is destroyed with the last burst of ammo its opponent has.
Overranked Soldier: Inverted. It's explicitly called out that after over 30 years of decorated service, Maverick should be at least an two-star admiral, if not mustered out and become a senator, not just a captain.
Reality Ensues: Maverick has thus far avoided getting kicked out of the Navy despite his antics thanks to Iceman covering for him, but even then there's only so much that can be done. 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 permanently 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.
Precision F-Strike: The sole F-bomb allowed to PG-13 movies is reserved for Rooster expressing disbelief at a fifth-generation fighter doing a Herbst maneuver.
Product Placement:
- The Darkstar was designed by Lockheed Martin and has its decals.
- Hondo uses a IWC watch to time the mission's ingress flight.
Screw the Rules, I Have Connections: Less malicious and probably deliberate than most, but Maverick has dodged permanent grounding or worse only because of Iceman using superior authority to cover for him.
Spiritual Licensee: The Ace Combat community has embraced the film as being the closest thing there probably will be to a big budget Live Action Adaptation of the series, albeit one that pays attention to ammo constraints, G-forces and how dangerous things that are routine in the games would be if done "for real". "Final boss battle with an enemy Bigger Stick" is also a series staple. Even better, while the film's production schedule makes any deliberate reference almost impossible (preliminary production started in 2018 with scriptwriting years before, while Skies Unknown was released in 2019), the mission is very much like a three-way hybrid of the missions Bunker Buster (laser-designating bunkers for destruction), Cape Rainy Assault (flying through a canyon) and Faceless Soldier (flying low to avoid missiles), and Maverick being an Old Soldier test pilot returning to combat to show the younglings what's up is a lot like Mihaly.
Strong Family Resemblance: Rooster looks a lot like his father, moustache included, which doesn't help Maverick's issues in the slightest.
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. Rooster takes it up during the mission.
Taking the Bullet: When Rooster runs out of countermeasures, Maverick deliberately puts his plane in the way of incoming missiles and gets shot down.
Timeshifted Actor: Miles Teller plays the 30-years older Bradley, who was played in the first Top Gun as a child by twins Aaron and Adam Weis.
Tragic Keepsake: One of the first things shown of Maverick is his wall of photos of and with Goose.