Top Gun

Rating:
Summary: All-time Classic
Review: Top Gun can be best remembered as a future star producer. Tom Cruise solidified his status as a leading man, Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, and Kelly McGillis rounded out an ensemble cast that today would be too expensive to put together. Sadly, Anthony Edwards (Revenge of the Nerds I & II) who showed so much promise fell to the B-List of actors. Tom Skerritt, in one of his best roles, turned into the same fate. I should add McGillis (Witness,) because she's a no-show at present and has been for a long time. The movie is by far one of the best aerial cinematography of our Navy planes in action, even to this day. The storyline appears at first to be a "run & gun," high-octane splash, but the middle change in velocity is both saddening and a frightful reality of aviators. The inner selves of the characters begin to deepen and the ending isn't predictable. Top Gun is one of the finest movies that defined the 80's.
Rating:
Summary: hollywood-ish dogfights
Review: the movie follows a very predictable formula of personal high, hit rock bottom then recover-at-the-end flow. impressive movie back then during its days but watching it over and over makes me want more out of the end dogfight scenes. [why did they include a-6 footages to show maverick in waiting at the catapults? clearly, the tomcat and the intruder have different undercarriage looks] nice sounds though....i like watching it for the thunderous sounds of the navy jets...nice cinematography on pilot rescue and tied-down tomcat on carrier deck...pick up a copy of the documentary dvds "the story of top gun" and firepower2000 if you're into military aviation...

Rating:
Summary: Best Movie Ever Made!
Review: This is by far the best movie ever made. Most of the military aspect is accurate and it has a very good story line.

Charlie: "What were you doing with the Mig?"
Maverick: "Communicating"
Charlie: "What?"
Maverick: "The bird."
Goose: (Holding up his middle finger) You know the finger... I hate it when that happens.

The movie is a classic and should be a part of everyone's collection.

Rating:
Summary: Must see over and over and over
Review: One of the better films that came out of the 80's. It's not about a rouge pilot. It's about knowing your limits at being the best.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie which did'nt need a sequel
Review: I still have the soundtrack to a movie I saw sixteen years ago. Tom Cruise plays the part of an ambitous but smart-alec pilot Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, who goes to Top Gun, the naval training academy for America's best pilots. He falls on love with a civilian instructor played by Kelly Mcgillis. A tragic accident claims the life of Maverick's best friend 'Goose' played by Anthony Edwards. Maverick quits the school after the tragedy and after learning of the story behind the disappearance of his father during the Vietnam War. But a military emergency which requires the Top Gun pilot's involvement sees Maverick bring home the bacon in a dogbattle which involves rescuing Top Gun rival 'Iceman' played by Val Kilmer. The battle scenes and photography blend in well with the cental character: the making of Maverick as a more mature, sensible pilot. Meg Ryan, Tom Skerrit and Michael Ironside play sensible roles as supporting actors. A great film that needed no sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, Terrible DVD!
Review: While this movie is one of my all time favorites and a must for everybody's DVD library, there are NO special features! No 'Making of the movie', no 'deleted scenes', no commentary. How can such a great movie be put on a DVD without any special features? I'm hoping there will be a re-release of the DVD that will be much better!

Rating:
Summary: Human drama which eclipses the aerial battles.
Review: This is sometimes seen as a typical 1980s film, making the name of Tom Cruise and featuring typically 1980s themes. Military men (compare with the dozens of Vietnam films) in smart white uniforms (An Officer And A Gentleman) fall for women with bad hairstyles. But this is really a film out of time. There is apparently a war going on with an un-named country (the implication is that it is the USSR), and this war is necessary to give any credibility to the dangers these top flyers face. This film feels as though it should have been set in 1943, with war-time themes of pilots on leave, garrison towns, and the 'first of the few' spirit suffusing the whole thing. Having set the story in the 1980s, however, the flying scenes are all handled skilfully and effectively, my only criticism being that it is difficult to see what is going on sometimes, especially with the stars' faces hidden behind flight helmets. One thing that is particularly 1980s, however is the soundtrack. Giorgio Moroder rarely puts a foot wrong, and some of his best work is on show here in the Oscar-winning Take My Breath Away.

Anthony Edwards gives a great performance but it's a pity he is in the shadow of Tom Cruise throughout as he deserves more. The two ladies in their lives are played by a young Meg Ryan and Kelly McGillis, both being believable in the roles they play. If I had one criticism, it would be that too much time is spent in the air with 'planes, whereas the real drama is on the ground between humans

Rating:
Summary: I can't shake this flick!!!
Review: Can anybody think of military aviation, the late 1980's, patch-covered leather jackets or patriotic rousing boffo blockbuster flicks and not think of this flick? In the story, Tom "Maverick" Mitchell is the typical bad-boy fighter pilot, a naturally gifted fighter-driver lacking any trace of discipline. Haunted by the mysterious fate of his father who was lost flying a Navy Phantom over North Vietnam, Mav is driven to succeed - even if that requires him to make high-speed passes over control towers, carrier decks and admirals' daughters. When he and a wingman intercept a pair of "MiG-28's" over the Indian Ocean (real MiGs are odd-numbered only),. Mav is tagged to go for "Top Gun", the Navy's elite fighter-pilot school. There his strengths and his weaknesses as an F-14 driver become painfully clear to everybody, especially the school's top ace, "Viper" Metcalfe (Tom Skerrit) and fellow-student "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer). In a paint-by-numbers script, Mav falls for Top Gun's civilian analyst (Kelly Mcgillis), loses his close friend "Goose" (a pre-ER Anthony Edwards) in an freak mid-air accident, learns to doubt himself, grow up and become a real Top Gun in time for a climactic battle between a sextet of the evil MiG-28's.

So why is this movie so important? Why not try asking anybody who's tried to follow-up this aero-classic using real airplanes and not CGI. 15 years later aerial footage from both this film and "Iron Eagle" are still used as stock, though it's clear that TG's is better, and nobody has even come close to surpassing it, CGI or otherwise. Though the plot is easily dismissed as unrealistic, the flight scenes go above and beyond in conveying the speed and gravity of these airplanes - especially the F-14 which is among the largest fighters in the world. (The F-14's large size is a liability in real combat, but also makes the plane much more cinematic than smaller jets like the Hornet or the F-16). Nothing is easy for these guys (and the fatal spin near the film's climax superlatively shows just how dangerous a job it is). Patriotic? How evil! Actually, though a tribute to real fighter-drivers, this flick isn't really all that jingoistic (unless you're the type who feels that the sight of any military hardware is necessarily jingoistic), and the mysterious nature of the dreaded MiGs is further proof of no flag-waving. (MiG's are Russian, but the Exocet missiles they carry are French; The Russians had no aircraft carriers capable of launching true fighter-jets until the end of the cold-war, and probably had few of their own airbases on the Indian Ocean in the mid 1980's.) A simple plot? Sure, but better than something convoluted. On the clearly plus side, the special effects are matchless, the sound and editing are tops and the photography (in which southern California skies are purple, and even sunlight looks liquid) is simply beautiful. The editing really makes the film - with flight scenes cut so quickly that you never realize how slow the mammoth F-14's are really flying. I'd get this film in wide-screen to bring out the effects. If you feel the need for speed - don't be cheap.

Rating:
Summary: Guilty Pleasure
Review: Oh yeah; the jets roar, the top gun aces sass and swagger and the script trips and plops out such memorable quoters as: "you can be my wing man anytime" . . . (right up there with Kirk Douglas's Spartacus snarling at Crassus' legions: "they can't stop men who wan't to be free", etc.); well, news is, they can stop men who want to be free; they can do that by casting Kelly McGillis up against the very short Tom Cruise (Maverick); they can hope for something like charisma, sexual tension, animal magnetism or just good ole fashion' lust on the tarmac; but, no dice; it just don't happen; the best (and only) love affair in this hot-to-be-liked Tony Scott film is that between tiny Tom and Anthony Edwards (E.R.'s favorite bald surgeon); oh, yeah -- those two bohunks click; as does Val Kilmer's Iceman -- the nerves of steel by the books hot shot who will probably wind up marrying Ollie North's daughter and running for Congress (note: please, do not let me see him wearing towel only ever again -- his is a torso only Ben Kingsley in Gandhi outdoes); but back to Top Gun; yes, that's Meg Ryan as Anthony Edwards' wife/widow; it is one of her best parts; you can almost like her; Tom Skerritt, who is never forgettable in any part, looks as if he wishes his mustache were on Tom Cruise (who, if he had a mustache, might look old enough to sign up for his own paper route); Michael Ironside doesn't know if Cruise/Maverick will ever shape into the ace of aces we all know he has to become if the film is to end; and end it does; all is well in the azure skies of freedom and at Top Gun school in Miramar, CA; the juke box plays "You've Lost That Lovin Feelin'" as Kelly and Tom reunite; I hope they don't have kids; or, if they do, the kids avoid this movie; just kidding; there are great aerial scenes and then there are great landing and take-off scenes; I like the jet trails too; and the overplayed Berlin song, "Take My Breath Away", which should have been bought up by Certs or Listerine or a Mexican Restaurant chain; oh well, there is no irony in popular movies any more; wait for the trading cards.

Rating:
Summary: Real slick.....
Review: This is a movie one can see over and over again...and is up, up and away better on DVD. Absolutely stunning aerial photography, great lines, good acting all around, real exciting scenes, though aerial combat sequences are not as realistic as one expects it to be, but then, it is a movie. The objective is to entertain and to help pump up the adrenaline while just sitting down...and in this the movie succeeds, helped on by some good themely athmospheric soundtrack.

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .. 22 >>