In fact Maverick was no where near as good as the original Top Gun.
About the only aspect that I can say was superior was the cinematography and special effects – which is to be expected thirty years later.
Let’s start with the soundtrack: The music was blah – not one memorable song.
Secondly, no one stood out. When you consider the first cast had Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironsides, and Meg Ryan – this one had no memorable characters or actors – including Tom Cruise who didn’t seem to have much zing in him this time.
The plot so-so (and pretty far fetched).
But worse of all was the screenplay – it had so many glaring errors – especially in the last ten minutes I was shocked. It was like someone insisted this end a certain way and the writers had to twist in a tangle to make it come out that way. The fact is, if they didn’t make these errors the ending would have been impossible – so maybe a lot of the script got edited and cut to make the ending feel good. I don’t know. I can’t believe not one review I’ve seen mentions these errors.
Specifically- what happened to Maverick’s and Rooster’s back-seaters at the end? Did Rooster fly back to the carrier and drop him off? (ha-ha) And Maverick’s was conspicuously absent most of the time though he can be heard talking to him!! The problem was they didn’t fit the ending – which would not haqve been possible with them around – so they just disappeared.
