This is a must see movie. I was so inspired by this long-overdue movie. If you are on the fence, see it. Mostly spoiler free review below.
I am a notoriously hard movie critic and there's only a couple hundred movies I like. I think 99% of films are absolute garbage. Almost no films worth watching since probably the turn of the century IMO. The best film era was 1970s-1990s, pre-CGI, when story, plot, and acting had to carry a film.
I put off seeing Maverick until last night, so what, like 6+ months since release. Yeah, I heard how great it was. I no longer believe reviews, being very skeptical. Psychologically, I know I put it off because I have grown tired of all my Hollywood heroes and films being trashed by modern hidden agendas combined with atrocious characters, acting, and CGI. (Indiana Jones, Predator, Alien, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Mad Max, the Thing...). Top Gun was a childhood favorite. I had the famous Cruise/McGillus poster in my room as a kid. I was guarding myself from watching yet another disaster.
Having said that, I watched with a friend last night on her highest recommendations. We watch a lot of movies together. She bought me the DVD. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I felt so happy and inspired. It was a taste of my youth, and captured the exact right tone, message, and spirit of films from the bold, courageous, invincible pre-9/11 days of my youth. When we took for granted all of the USA kick-* films. Nothing like this has been made, to my knowledge, since pre-9/11 that captures this spirit this well.
I really liked and deeply admire and respect the classy treatment of Kilmer's character and giving him a great send-off legacy in this movie. He's one of my favorite actors from several films, and I appreciated seeing him get in this film and his service memorialized like this. I appreciated the repeated scenes and throwbacks, pictures, etc. This film really hit me in the feelz. (Something Mad Max 4 could have and should have capitalized on, in that film, was actual earlier events that caused PTS and remorse, and bad guys he killed, rather than terrible newly manufactured CGI non-people. I digress.)
Casting/Acting. Excellent. Cruise just continues to put me in awe. He's living his best life and I applaud that. That guy is simply amazing. I'm no Cruise fan boy but I was reviewing all his films, and realized how much I really like him as an actor, in at least 10-15 movies I really like such as "A Few Good Men - which I hold as instrumental to my military/legal career. Also, Outsiders was a childhood favorite and holds up well. Plus Collateral, Risky Business, Mission Impossible, Far and Away, and many more.
I was initially concerned about some woke-agenda with the pilots being cast, because they frankly are not representative of elite fighter pilots. I'll leave it at that. But I thought it was done very very well and did not perceive any hidden woke SJW agendas. I thought the rest of the cast, including Jon Hamm, delivered perfect performances.
Plot. Going into the film, it's not what I expected but it makes perfect sense, and I couldn't have thought of or written a better plot. I sincerely liked the character development of Maverick as a Naval officer with ups and downs, at times his own worst enemy but truly living up to the name Maverick. I thought it was well developed, logical, and explained succinctly thru comments and actions.
Action. While simply over-the-top at times, and probably not possible (I'm not an aerial expert), I never felt an eye-roll moment or that it was forced or contrived. Any CGI was so well done as to not be discernable. It flowed logically, and very well, albeit some times the action and story were predictable to a degree. But I was delightfully surprised a few times as well. It was the best and most well done of any action film I've seen in a very very long time.
I woke up today just totally in a great mood inspired by it and told several people that truthfully it's the best new film I've seen in decades. I also think it holds a place in the "best sequel" along with Star Wars IV/V, Mad Max 1/2, Aliens 1/2, and Terminator 1/2. It is truly that good.
If you haven't seen it, you simply must.