ACES HIGH (TOP GUN:MAVERICK)

If you were to pick a quintessential 1980s movie, Tony Scott's 'Top Gun' would come pretty high up the list.

Scott's movie was big. 

It was gung ho. 

It had Tom Cruise, the hottest young star in Hollywood.

The film was pretty much emblematic of Reagan's America.

It was also the product of a country that was pretty assured about its place in the world in spite of Vietnam.

It's taken 36 years for a 'Top Gun' sequel to materialise but in the intervening years the United States has become more insecure.

After the polarised politics of the Clinton, Bush and Obama era, the wrecking ball years of the Trump Presidency and the mess that Joe Biden has inherited, the country hasn't seemed this ill at ease since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.

A nation divided has seen stock tumble internationally.

Old Cold War certainties have gone.

America's international rivals are wide and varied including Russia and China, while Islamic fundamentalist terror groups pose a significant threat to its security.

Half of its voters appear more interested in waging culture wars within its own borders than in taking a stand for what's right in the world.

And that's before we even scratch the legacy of a deep racial divide.

Against that backdrop, it seems odd that a new 'Top Gun' movie has taken flight.

But maybe that climate is just perfect for a film like John Kosinski's 'Top Gun: Maverick'?

Tired of the zero sum game of divisive politicians and the 24 hour news cycle, audiences in the US may be receptive to a story of togetherness, bravado and triumph that isn't within the confines of the Marvel universe.

And maybe that yearning for unity and something to celebrate explains why in its opening weekend, 'Top Gun: Maverick' raced to a $100 million opening weekend in the US and Canada.

Or maybe Kosinski's film is simply an exercise in nostalgia for the over 50s?

Let's be honest.

The original 'Top Gun' was an extremely cheesy movie and it hasn't aged well at all - certainly not as well as a decent cheddar or parmigiano reggiano.

If it were a cheese, Scott's film was probably more like those sickly sauces you get on cinema nachos or cheese dogs.

It was plastic, throwaway and hardly substantial.

So how do Kosinski, Cruise, the storytelling team of Peter Craig and Justin Marks and the screenwriters, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie make it relevant to 21st Century audiences?

Kosinski's film begins with Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the Mojave Desert.

Almost four decades on from the preceding film, Maverick remains a Captain and pilot in the Navy and has not climbed the ranks, unlike Val Kilmer's Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, who commands the US Pacific fleet, nor has he settled for married life.

That doesn't seem to bother him at all. He seems quite happy testing a hypersonic plane.

The top brass, however, want to shut down the hypersonic program and when Ed Harris' Rear Admiral Chester "Hammer" Cain turns up at his base, Maverick defies him by breaking the Mach 10 speed barrier on theor prototype jet.

While this deed of derring-do buys the program time, Rear Admiral Cain informs him he will not be part of it.

Courtesy of Iceman, Maverick has to report to the North Island where he flew as a Top Gun pilot.

Heading up to the base, he is told by John Hamm's commander of the Naval Air Forces, Vice Admiral Beau 'Cyclone' Simpson that he's not there to fly planes on a secret mission.

Making no secret of his disdain for Maverick, Admiral Simpson reveals Iceman wants him to prepare a dozen of the best young pilots for a daring mission to take out a uranium enrichment plant abroad.

The mission, which requires the jets to fly undetected by radar, looks impossible with casualties inevitable.

And to make matters worse, he has only three weeks to get a team together capable of executing the mission.

His task is further complicated by the fact that one of the pilots is Miles Teller's Lieutenant Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw - the son of his old friend Goose whose death still haunts him and who he tried to block from joining the Naval air force.

Rooster is angry with him for doing that, while the rest of the candidates for the mission include Glen Powell's cocky Lieutenant Jake 'Hangman' Seresin who is not much of a team player, Monica Barbaro's determined Lieutenant Natasha 'Phoenix' Trace, Lewis Pullman's reserved Lieutenant Robert 'Bob' Floyd, Jay Ellis' Lieutenant Reuben 'Payback' Fitch and Danny Ramirez's Lieutenant Mickey 'Fanboy' Garcia.

On his return to the North Island, Maverick reconnects with an old flame, Jennifer Connelly's bar owner Penny Benjamin.

But with Simpson breathing down his neck and Iceman dying from cancer, will Maverick be given the time he needs to whip his team of elite pilots into shape? 

And can the team he chooses to take on the mission complete it successfully, without losing a colleague?

The first thing to recognise about 'Top Gun: Maverick' is that it has no interest in being anything other than a popcorn thrill ride.

Kruger, Singer and McQuarrie's screenplay has no pretensions.

It isn't keen to dig too deep into its characters. 

All it wants to do is give its audience a series of adrenaline rushes.

Do you need to have seen the original?

Not really but it probably helps because doing so furthers your appreciation of just how superior it is to Scott's film.

The flight sequences and stunts are jaw dropping, with some of the cast flying the jets and operating the cameras in the cockpits.

But what's most intriguing about the film is watching Cruise take on the mentor role he once relied on Paul Newman or Dustin Hoffman to do in 'The Color of Money' or 'Rain Man'.

Now almost 60 but aged 56 at the time Kosinski shot the movie, Cruise settles comfortably into the role of an elder statesman who is not quite past his use by date.

Teller does a decent job as his younger, bitter sparring partner and Hamm and Harris are good value as superiors who admire Maverick's talent but loathe his free spirit as they pull rank.

As for the rest of the cast, they do what the script requires of them, including Connelly who joins the dots as Maverick's love interest.

After a battle in real life with throat cancer, Kilmer pops up as Iceman and he and Maverick are reunited in a scene which is designed to tug on the heart strings.

Of the new generation, Powell is a little too smug as Hangman with a face and a manner that just begs for someone to punch him, while Barbaro is a lively presence.

Charles Parnell provides sturdy support as Rear Admiral Solomon 'Warlock' Bates who commands the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Centre, while Bashir Salahuddin is warmer as Maverick's partner in crime, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bernie 'Hondo' Coleman.

Kosinski, Kruger, Singer and McQuarrie are smart enough to riff on nostalgic recreations of scenes from the original movie - although the film does, like the original, often veer into cheesiness.

Nevertheless it outshines the original on the back of some jaw dropping stunts and a final flight sequence that rivals the Rebel Alliance's bombardment of the Death Star in the original 'Star Wars' movie.

Its writers are also clever enough to understand that in the 21st Century the film can't just be about a gang of white jocks but to be a bit more ethnically diverse. 

But what is really intriguing about 'Top Gun: Maverick' is its lack of specificity about who the Americans are actually fighting.

Its showpiece battle takes place in a icy climate that suggests it's Russia but it's never mentioned - unless Iceland or Finland have turned into an aggressive superpower.

Not that it matters to Kosinski and his writers.

All they care about is giving Americans a desperately needed win over two hours.

They do that by pulling together a team as ethnically diverse as the nation itself, with a token woman in the ranks and it revels in the moulding of them into an effective fighting force blending a range of different personalities.

Not that the MAGA brigade will get all that from Kosinski's film.

They'll just watch it and chant "USA.. USA.. USA" before going back to loathing the Democrats.

('Top Gun: Maverick' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on May 27, 2022)