Reviews: "Top Gun: Maverick," "Obi-Wan Kenobi"

Top Gun: Maverick (Dir. Joseph Kosinski)

When reawakening dormant franchises, there are some necessary tenets to which filmmakers must adhere. First and foremost, they must revisit old characters and settings with cleverness and innovation. Equally as important are the introductions of new characters, fresh faces to suit the current generations. Some do this better than others: this year’s Scream reboot, a self-described “re-quel,” buried itself under such layers of ironic self-awareness that any feeble attempts at insight reached an immediate dead end. Yet this isn’t to say that it can’t be done: Rian Johnson’s take on the Star Wars franchise, The Last Jedi (2017), allowed series newcomers to substantively engage with classic characters while those same characters performed fascinating anti-nostalgic turns. At a time when sequels dominate the box office, it can be easy to get franchise fatigue. Yet it is important to remember, as with The Last Jedi, that it is, in fact, possible to make franchises compelling.

After his experience with the Mission: Impossible franchise, a series with a remarkable batting average, it only makes sense that workaholic movie star Tom Cruise would know which buttons to press to get Top Gun: Maverick to take flight. In a natural progression from the Pentagon-funded 1986 original, Maverick understands the instinctive power of practical effects, wrapping exhilirating skyward thrills inside a simple plot that cleverly winds its way towards genuine emotion. As an action film, Maverick soars. Yet an intelligently structured script (written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Mission: Impossible veteran Christopher McQuarrie) pushes the film even further: it works, moreover, as a parable of Cruise’s character and career. A scintillating ode to an ageless American superstar, Maverick is a nostalgic recognition of an age long past its prime, all while finding time to bask in its warm, jet-fueled glow.

Three decades on, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) has left the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (the “Top Gun” curriculum) for a simpler life—“simple” here defined by the Tom Cruise standard of test piloting experimental jets to hypersonic speeds. Wearing an astronaut’s helmet, Maverick tears recklessly through beautiful sunset skies, breaking speed records as only he could do. Naturally, his behavior brings him face to face with Chester “Hammer” Cain (Ed Harris), a Navy admiral whose sole narrative purpose is to reprimand Maverick’s recklessness. “Your kind is headed for extinction,” he tells him, invoking the drone technology that will soon put any and all pilots out of a job. It’s a simple reminder that the American militarism so gloriously represented by Cruise in the original Top Gun is now out of date.

But this is Top Gun, dammit, and we aren’t here for grim realities. We’re here for the dogfights, and the macho banter, and that irresistible Tom Cruise smile. Which is why, when Hammer delivers the news that Maverick has been ordered back to Top Gun to train pilots to combat an unnamed uranium-enriching rogue nation, we feel that sizzling energy returning to the screen. Old roles return under fun new guises: Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm) functions as the strict anti-hotshot commanding officer; Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) plays Maverick’s love interest with greater roundedness than Kelly McGillis in the original film; and Jake “Hangman” Seresin (Glen Powell) works as a younger iteration of Maverick with an even higher frat-bro quotient. Most important of all is Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), a level-headed pilot with a grudge: his father, Goose, was Maverick’s old wingman. His tragic death in the first film remains a touchstone that brings Maverick and Rooster to blows.

An array of other pilots (including performances by Lewis Pullman, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, and others) fly alongside Maverick in nail-biting set pieces that see fighter jets whizzing through mountain ranges to speeds reaching Mach 10. The claustrophobic tension inside the film’s F/A-18 jet is palpable, an effect that director Joseph Kosinski achieved after combing through footage that reportedly totals over more than all three Lord of the Rings movies combined. Maverick readily displays that visceral delight that comes with watching practical effects directed simply and elegantly. Kosinski is here in top form.

As with all of Cruise’s best films, Top Gun: Maverick works as both a spectacular thrill-fest and as a metaphor for the man himself. Like the Mission: Impossible series—films centering on an action superstar overcoming impossible obstacles through sheer will—so too does Maverick symbolize and reflect upon Cruise’s sometimes maniacal filmmaking tendencies. Audio reports of him verbally berating the Mission: Impossible crew for breaking COVID protocols certify him as a obsessive, if difficult virtuoso of action cinema. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell isn’t much different: he will push himself and his students to unforeseen limits in the name of a patriotic American ideal that most seem to have forgotten. Thank goodness we’ve still got him around.

—James Fahey

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Dir. Deborah Chow)

(Reviewing episodes one and two)

Ewan McGregor returns alongside Hayden Christensen (one assumes, being yet to make a real appearance in these first two episodes), the much maligned stars of George Lucas’ thoroughly shat-upon Star Wars prequel trilogy. Beloved by a younger generation of fans (which the folks in Disney’s market research department have identified as the consumer demographic with the most purchasing power), McGregor and Christensen have been dragged from the arms of Mary Elizabeth Winstead and a Caterpillar Bulldozer, respectively, to return to their (by now somewhat musty) Jedi robes. Obi-Wan Kenobi opens with a “previously, on Star Wars” recap of the original films, which serves to remind the viewer how much better the source material actually looked. Kenobi is essentially a rather expensive fan film, for which this recap serves as a clear reminder. Yet this strikes a palpably different tone from the recycled western antics of Dave Filoni and John Favreau’s The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. With Kenobi, Disney is trying to break into the “Prestige Television Drama” market occupied by such smash hits as Game of Thrones or Vince Gilligan’s Albuquerque crime sagas Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. McGregor’s reprisal of his Alec Guinness impression is unlikely to be mentioned in the annals of television history as those other titans, yet Kenobi is a refreshing departure from the ersatz Eastwood churned out by Filoni and Favreau.

Obi-Wan, skulking around on Tatooine, is brought out of hiding after Flea (the guy from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, or Baby Driver, if you’d prefer) kidnaps a precocious and ultimately endearing ten-year-old Princess Leia. Bail Organa (a returning Jimmy Smits), Leia’s adoptive father, beseeches Obi-Wan to resume his galactic adventures and find the soon-to-be senator on some far off cyberpunk netherworld. Kenobi’s breakneck pace allows for little in the way of characterisation, and Obi-Wan goes from browbeaten meatpacker to robed force-user in about twenty minutes or so. The supporting cast provides an amusing gallery of ne’er-do-wells, including a not-quite-Hans Landa played with gusto by Rupert Friend and an earnest Benny Safdie as his Jedi prey. The writing is one-dimensional, and never quite reaches the camp operatics of its source material. Neither does Natalie Holt’s paint-by-numbers score, which cannot compete with John Williams’ original material. Ultimately, Kenobi is a rather entertaining trip through a visually inventive galaxy of curious animatronics and well-constructed backlots, even if it may not linger in the public imagination as Revenge of the Sith has done.

—Alexander Ferrier