Review of Top Gun: Maverick (2022) by Mauro_Lanari — 31 May 2022

(Mauro Lanari).

Sly had already tried it with the trilogy "The Expendables", an economic but not critical success: a dozen years ago the hangover of the planetary reviewers was aimed at crossmedialization (or globalization) and panned as "nostalgia operation" everything what was distant from the new trend. Instead Bruckheimer returns to produce not silly TV series but a blockbuster, calling back in their roles as film stars actors sold off to the fictions of the streaming platforms: Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris. Not a masterpiece but not even the caricature of a blockbuster: fortunately it is not Bergman who plays chess with death, but it is the identical concept adapted for the masses ("Time is your worst enemy"). And it is also metacinematographic: the military mission to be accomplished is feasible only by downgrading the paraphernalia and relying on the additional capabilities of the human factor so as to circumvent the digital supertechnology set up to fight something that on paper should no longer exist. This reminds the historic lose wars because of an arsenal suitable for pitched battles and not for guerrilla warfare. Havin' learned the lesson, passed the period of famine, victory is guaranteed. Ps: just to be clear, I have no memory of a single frame of Tony Scott's film.