‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Takes It to the Limit

May 24, 2022

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Top Gun: Maverick (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Monica Barbaro, Charles Parnell, Jay Ellis, Greg Tarzan Davis, Bashir Salahuddin

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Running Time: 131 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Danger Behind Enemy Lines

Release Date: May 27, 2022

Let’s throw it right out there to begin. Does Top Gun: Maverick make me once again want to have the need, the need for speed? I won’t mince words: sort of, but not exactly. Those aerial acrobatics certainly had my adrenaline pumping, but patience is a virtue when watching this movie. Two hours and eleven minutes isn’t exactly a bloated running time for a big blockbuster action sequel, but when the majority of the action consists of training sessions leading up to The One Big Mission, you feel the weight of the wait. And as far as I, a humble movie viewer, can tell … that is exactly what everyone involved was going for! We get to see the work that goes into pushing limits, we all hold our collective breath, and we pray that everyone makes it out of the danger zone. And then Lady Gaga brings it on home with a rapturous rock ballad. That’s the formula for Top Gun Success in 2022.

You may be wondering why Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is still flying with the new class of pilots 36 years after we first met him. It’s not just because Tom Cruise is incorrigible about doing his own stunts. Metatextually, that is the reason, of course, but within the context of the narrative, it’s because Maverick just doesn’t want to be promoted beyond captain. Responsibility blows, right? Nevertheless, this state of affairs means that he’s the best person to train the new crop of Top Gun pilots (which includes at least one offspring of a former colleague) for an impossible mission. And what a doozy of an impossible mission it is, as they have to wipe out a uranium enrichment site in some mountainous nation (that remains hilariously unnamed the whole movie) by executing some dangerously sharp descents and ascents. It’s a very specific, contained situation to build an entire story around, and it mostly works.

If you’re hoping for the same bonhomie as the original, it’s certainly there, with a round of beach football taking the place of the volleyball. But the main attraction is all the clearly defined aerial action. The maneuvers require so much G-force that loss of consciousness is fully expected. We’re talking fainting while piloting thousands of feet up in the air! I could feel myself being flattened like a pancake in my seat just watching it. This is a portrait of the test of human limits that will have your throat in your stomach, your brain in your toes, and your soul dying and reincarnating. The danger zone is alive and well.

Top Gun: Maverick is Recommended If You Like: Watching planes fly by before football or baseball games

Grade: 4 out of 5 G-Forces

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Escape Room’ Makes Immersive Puzzles Fun and Unsettling

January 3, 2019

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: David Bloomer/Sony Pictures Entertainment

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2019.

Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, Nik Dodani

Director: Adam Robitel

Running Time: 109 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Disorientingly Perilous Action, Traumatic Flashbacks, and Inadvertent Drug Use

Release Date: January 4, 2019

Depending on where you’re coming from, Escape Room is arriving either ten years too late or right on schedule. The real-life escape room craze is still going strong, if TV shows as diverse as Conan and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are to be believed. From that perspective, Escape Room the film is cannily capitalizing on a current trend. But considered from a cinematic context, the Saw series already set the template a decade ago (and now even exists in its own escape room form). But that is not exactly the highest standard. Thus, Escape Room, which renders immersive puzzle spaces actually deadly, has plenty of space to make its mark as a solid piece of entertainment for those who do not have the stomach for torture porn.

That is not to say that Escape Room is a pleasant watch, especially for anyone claustrophobic enough to find the entire concept of escape rooms frightening enough in the first place. It has a cruel streak, though it is tempered by a consistent preference for hope (or at least the illusion of it). Where Saw was often gross and off-putting while occasionally trying to say something about human nature, Escape Room is tightly engineered but also unsettling in just how random it ultimately is. The six people who have been chosen for this challenge all have a past as the lone survivors of deadly accidents, including drunk driving, an IED blast, and carbon monoxide poisoning. While the escape room has been designed with their histories in mind, that concept may have everything or nothing to do with who makes it out alive. The (possibly sequel teeing-up) ending is effective as a gut punch saying that this whole game is actually a “no escape” room. But the whole movie has a feeling of meaninglessness that is somewhat frightening but also the sign of a screenplay with limited subtext.

That said, while Escape Room‘s themes and motivations are never fully clear, it was successful at holding my attention, and I suspect that many audiences will feel the same. The designs of each section of the escape room are ingenious feats of engineering, from a lobby that turns into an oven to an upside-down pool bar. It also helps that each of the characters generally act to the top of their intelligences, making this an engaging battle of wits. We also get at least two different kinds of comic relief, with Tyler Labine as the goofy uncle type and Nik Dodani (best known as Murphy Brown’s new social media director) as the escape room enthusiast who realizes too late how real the threat is. The whole thing is fluffy, but enough to make you think twice about playing any more interactive games.

Escape Room is Recommended If You Like: Actual escape rooms probably, plus the Saw and Final Destination series

Grade: 3 out of 5 Unlocked Doors