Movie #5: Top Gun

Date Watched: 1/10/10
Viewing: 2nd

I watched this movie when I was in high school, maybe 5 years ago. At the time I did not enjoy it, but everyone loves this movie (including my roommate) so I decided to give it another shot. Warning, if you love top gun to death stop reading now. The movie is about a pilot, Maverick (Cruise), who gets into Top Gun, the best flight school for naval pilots, by chance and wants to be the best. He has a rival, Ice Man and they have very brief interactions that lack intensity throughout the movie (the best actually being when they play volleyball in my opinion).

This movie is horrendous. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it. Maybe it's because it's a little older (1986) and doesn't quite deliver for me visually due to the progress of the industry. Or maybe it's because it is just that bad. Where to begin.... Probably the best "worst soundtrack" of all time. Trivia: What song gets played more times in the movie, "Danger Zone" or "Take my Breath Away?" You'll have to find out for yourself, I lost track at 3 and 4 respectively. Tom Cruise's character is arrogant and mostly a jackass. Val Kilmer (Ice Man) is the least intimidating rival ever (he does chomp at Cruise at one point, sit down Tom). The dialogue is awful and consists of smack talk such as "hey....you stink" and "it's not your flying that's your problem, it's your attitude". Really Ice Man? Is this an after school special? You are so very undeserving of such an awesome nickname (the nicknames are the only reason this movie gets 2 stars instead of 1). I only liked Viper's character and the action sequences were quite pedestrian. Every cut shows one plane flying (usually by itself or casually next to one other) so you have no real feel for what's going on in each flight battle. Some cool aerial shots, but the scenes are boring when you get down to it. I feel like there's only one thing to blame for this movie's inadequacies: The 80's.

Overall, not really worth watching if you haven't by now. I'm pretty sure the movie was written by two 10-year-olds who were really excited to get model planes for Christmas one year. They then shot it using said model planes and used their worthless mix tape of bad 80's songs for the score.

I would recommend this for you if: you want to live vicariously through the characters because you always wanted to be a pilot and never will, love all things 80's, are highly entertained by watching things that go fast.

Rating: 2 stars