Top Gun (1986) How could we not revisit this movie.....especially before viewing the new "Top Gun: Maverick" currently pumping zillions of dollars into multiplex box offices everywhere.
This involves returning to the era of the original film.
The Age Of Ronald Reagan......where the U.S.A.'s humiliating exit from the disastrous Vietnam War was erased from our memories by a whole new breed testosterone-fueled cinematic Avengers - Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Gone were the downbeat, depressing, nihilistic climaxes of the 1970's.
We wanted to feel good, damn it. Hollywood joyously complied.
Winners were back in fashion. So were movies that screamed out (to borrow a phrase from "Team America)....'America....F**k Yeh!"
We wanted good guys to come out on top, get the girl of their dreams, and look damn good doing it, with some cool music to back them up too.
"Top Gun", crafted to look like a combination of music video and video arcade game, hit all those zeitgeist buttons......with a vengeance. And not only became the cash cow of the year but forever took its place as a major pop culture landmark of the 1980's.
As a united movie audience, we assembled to love everything about it.......the cocky but somehow endearing boyishness of Tom Cruise, the sculpted bodies of the young actors playing his fellow Navy fighter pilots, the dream-like imagery of their jets landing or soaring off into burnt orange sunrises, the crisp dialogue consisting mostly of sound bites, and the pounding pop songs destined to become embedded in our ears as touchstones of the movie.
Combine the film with its era and you don't have to wonder why it sent thousands of eager young men rushing into Navy recruiting offices to sign themselves up to blow up enemy MIGs with a wisecrack on their lips and boff a hot babe waiting for them pre-aroused.... to the sound of cool tunes.
Normally, we'd now come right to the point of writing a blog entry on a 36 year old film.......to answer the burning question, "Well, how does it hold up today?"
But it seems irrelevant to analyze the film that way.....it's so very steeped in its era and so very covered with the era's MTV high gloss that it functions more as a museum artifact......a live action poster of everything 1980's.
Keeping it in that perspective......"Top Gun" still remains, even if held at arm's length and watched with a casual eye, a pure fun experience, a shiny summer carnival ride from an American time and place long gone.
And if you've any plans to see the new film (and let's face it, who doesn't?), then consider the original a 3 star (***) essential.
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