Review: Top Gun Maverick

It is no secret that with the MANY classic and memorable properties over the years from both TV and film, that studios have been cashing in on those fan-favorite callbacks with remakes, reimaginings, or long-awaited sequels/prequels/hell at times threequels by banking on purely nostalgia for the original IP.   All these studios have multiple properties with interest from the studio big wigs deciding to revisit certain properties to further produce nostalgic triggers amongst the paying customers.  They are raking in older generations of viewers to partake in trips down memory lane, while inviting newcomers to experience the property with a fresh set of new eyes. We have covered MANY movies that do this on this blog in the past and hell we'll probably talking about nostalgia for years and years to come.  Because that is the way the world works.  Some express an interest of reminiscing with a familiar face from yesteryear, while others believe that too much fan-service can ruin the continuation franchise and are only presented in this way to make easy money.

So let's talk about a movie that has been long overdue on my list for the past month with Paramount Pictures and its legacy sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.  I got to be honest.  When this was first announced, I was incredibly cynical about this being a sequel.  For those of you who didn't watch or need a refresher on the original, Top Gun was a 1987 action movie that was...okay.  Perfectly okay.  I think it was far more interesting in the second half of its run time than it was in the first, but I get why it was framed the way it was.  It was glorious 80s action cheese with its catchphrases, soundtrack full of 80s bangers, and Tom Cruise mugging his face all over the place.  The movie was a capsule of its time period and I would be lying if I said I didn't have Maverick's jack and dog tags hanging in my house.  

But more importantly, why make a sequel to this?  What exactly warrants this to exist?  Was there anyone really dying to see the continued adventures of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and explore him even further as a character?  I mean I get that Paramount isn't doing too hot as a studio at the moment, but they can't really be this cash deprived and sorely in need of a hit.  What more could they possibly do with this property?

...is what I thought for the longest time.  And then the movie kept getting delayed repeatedly due to the pandemic.  I kept thinking that maybe Paramount would just push this straight to Paramount+ like they did with Sponge on the Run, Rumble, and damn near everything else on their calendar for the last two years.  But Tom Cruise said something interesting during those delays.  That this movie was meant to be seen on the big screen.  In a world where movies are focusing more and more on streaming, more and more actors, directors, etc. are publicly pointing out why movie theaters truly can't be beat and more want to make theater driven movies solely to remind the viewing public why nothing compares to the movie theater experience.  As a cinephile myself, I love that experience more than watching something in the comfort of my home.  And I've always been under the impression that Tom Cruise is one himself.  The man STILL does his own stunts in his late 50s.  Solely for his love of film.  So he caught my attention with his message about this sequel more than the many celebrities who have done this push to save the cinema going experience.

And message delivered.  Holy fucking shit was this movie something special.  A film that I am so glad to have paid to sit in a movie theater to go see.  Let me get that statement perfectly clear before I go any further with this review.  I went to see this in IMAX and the money was absolutely worth it.  This has some of the most breathtaking visuals I've ever seen.  Filmmaking and CGI has truly come a long way because I truly felt like I was in the air while watching some of these sequences.  Kudos to Maverick director and frequent Tom Cruise collaborater Joseph Kosinski..  Damn great directing.

Hell even the story is an improvement on the original.  I mean if you want to get overly critical here, yeah the framing and certain sequences you can point out as carbon copies of the original.  From the exact same opening sequence and fairly close closing sequence to the bar scene where Maverick and his love interest "Penny" reunite for the first time in years to the new characters being damn near carbon copies of the original characters.  To me though, I am forgiving of this because they were tributes to the original.  Otherwise, people would be forgetting this is a TOP GUN sequel and not just a Mission Impossible sequel or another Tom Cruise action movie.  Quote me on that because there were younger people in the audience not understanding the Top Gun homages and I bet you my theater wasn't the only one who had that.

What I loved about this story was that Tom Cruise's Maverick is a far more complex character than I expected.  In the original Top Gun, Maverick was not an interesting character until the third act.  Otherwise, he was a cocky shit throughout two thirds of the movie.  In the sequel, Maverick is still cocky because let's be honest, it is who he is.  But he still hasn't let go of the consequences of his actions for the death of Goose from the original and he made choices over the 35 years since the original that he is paying the repercussions for amongst other characters like Goose's son Rooster (also played greatly by Miles Teller).  Also we get to see Maverick train a new generation of navy pilots, with one of them being a carbon copy of himself mixed his rival from the original Iceman, played by Glen Powell.  It just adds more dimensions to Maverick's character and that is what we want to see from sequels and continuations.  Reasons to continue to be invested in these characters after so many years away.  Plus the mission is a hell of a lot better than the original.  The climax had me on the edge of my seat for 30-45 minutes compared to the original which was good, but not great.

And then there is the love story.  Look I'm not saying that the original love story was bad by any means.  But Maverick playing hot for teacher throughout the original was kind of...uninteresting?  Yeah Charlie (played by Kelly McGillis) and Maverick did have chemistry, but the movie didn't really do much for me to root for them to end up together.  But like I mentioned before, this movie did a better job exploring Maverick as a character, so seeing him reconnect with a long lost flame in Penny was much better because she turned down his advances and noticed that this character was fighting trauma that he has not learned to let go.  Much more fascinating.

One more thing.  This soundtrack still slaps after all these years.  It had the right amounts of nostalgia with the Top Gun theme and "Danger Zone", while also throwing in some nice newer 80s style callbacks like Lady Gaga's "Hold My Hand".  

So is this one of the best sequels ever made?  I think this has a case to be on the list.  I wouldn't call it my favorite sequel ever by any means....guys, The Empire Strikes Back exists.  But I think this is definitely Top 15 or 20 in my humble opinion.  And that is not an overreaction.  I've been longing for a movie to truly remind me in these still troubled times to make me fall back in love with the movie going experience.  And while I enjoyed the likes of The Batman and Spider-Man: No Way Home an awful lot...Top Gun: Maverick is better than both.  Absolutely capitalizing on perfect amounts of nostalgia and how far technology has come.  This is truly showing how to absolutely improve on the original in every possible fashion.

Final Grade: A+  

Review: Jurassic World: Dominion

 I'm sick of these fucking movies.

Where do I even start with this franchise?  How about the original Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all-time.  Was it perfect?  No.  But it is beloved by many.  It's one of the best book to film adaptations ever made if you ask me.  Because as someone who read the original novel, the film captures the magic of a dinosaur based park ten thousand times better than the author Michael Crichton could ever put on paper; no disrespect.  It is one of the best movies of Steven Spielberg's career as well as he absolutely nailed it.  Honestly, I could go on and on about how revolutionary this movie was to summer blockbusters.  Ahead of its time graphics, great acting, a compelling story, interesting characters, and DINOSAURS!  This movie is pretty damn legendary.

And of course, it earned a ton of money, which means we need sequels.  Tons and tons of sequels.  None of which have been able to recreate the magic that was Jurassic Park, nor challenge the franchise to grow into even more.  I mean I get why they don't.  Because the selling point is the dinosaurs, as it should be.  But you know what would make it sell even more?  A good movie.  Which if we are being totally honest, all the sequels have not been well received.  That doesn't mean I don't find them good.  The Lost World, the very first sequel, is a mindlessly dumb popcorn flick that entertains me.  But it doesn't hold a candle to Jurassic Park.  The exact same can be said for Jurassic World.  I thought that was ridiculously stupid, but has some of the most compelling action sequences of the entire series.  And Jurassic Park 3 and Fallen Kingdom are....movies...

Look what I'm trying to say is that the more things stay the same, the less and less I start to give a shit about these movies.  And this new movie, Dominion definitely challenges for the title of the worst of the series.  I might need some more time to mull whether it is the absolute worst because Fallen Kingdom currently holds that title for me personally.  Which let's talk about the end of that movie for a minute because I feel absolutely lied to.  At the very end of that movie, we were promised an actual Jurassic WORLD for once.  Not "have all the dinosaurs placed in one location".  No; an actual world full of dinosaurs.  Which absolutely suckered me in to thinking that we were finally going to try something new and not be given the same old shit.

And to the SURPRISE of no one, that's what we got.  If you consider that a spoiler, then I'm sorry but let's be honest by now.  If you have been following this franchise for as long as I have, then you would know by now to have zero expectations that these sequels would actually want to try and switch up the formula.  

Okay well that's not all true.  We have the main trio coming back of Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Satler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to do some B-plot that Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) could have done.  Same goes the other way too.  That's the thing about these characters.  They don't evolve whatsoever.  A Owen line could have been an Alan line.  Or an Ellie line could have been a Claire line.  These characters are so generic and interchangeable.  Well not all of them.  Jeff Goldblum's acting is kind of a caricature of himself to the point that he had me cracking up so many times whether it was intentional or not.

That being said, it feels like the creative team cares more about the humans and their utterly nonsensical subplots for quite some time now.  When in reality, the people came to see the dinosaurs.  Is that so selfish of me to think?  Especially since this is the best the dinosaurs have ever looked in these movies.  CGI has come such a long way since 1993 and while the 1993 CGI was far ahead of its time, the dinosaurs here look so much better than they have ever been.  But no, the dinosaurs are probably in like 30-35% of the movie.  Which sucks because we have to listen to such garbage plot points...oh and that reminds me.  You'll never guess who the villain of this movie is.  It is such a bafflingly out of left field choice that no one will ever guess in a million years.  I'm not going to spoil it for you because I cracked up when I found out that this person was the villain of this movie.

But yeah, outside of some impressive CGI and two to three fun scenes, it doesn't make up for arguably the shittiest movie of the entire series.  I'm still inclined to say that Fallen Kingdom was technically the worst movie of the bunch, but Dominion is hands down the most disappointing of the series.  And isn't that far behind Fallen Kingdom in quality.  If Universal is going to continue this series, and they probably will since this franchise makes way too much money to call it quits; they desperately need to focus on the quality because the more things stay the same, the less people turn out to your movies.  It happened to Star Wars, it happened to Fantastic Beasts, and with the way this franchise is headed, I wouldn't be surprised if it happens to Jurassic Park.

Final Grade: D

D stands for Dumbminion.  What did you guys think?  Was I being too harsh?  Do you find these movies to continually disappoint?  Are we going to see more Jurassic Park properties regardless of the quality?  Let me know in the comments below.  Until next time, thanks for reading and take care!

Review: Morbius

By the time you probably read this, this meme will officially be dead.  And Sony has no one to blame but themselves for killing it.

I've been begging for this meme to be dead for the past week.  It was all fun and games until Sony got their hands on it.

https://screenrant.com/morbius-box-office-movie-theater-return-marvel-memes/

Isn't that how it always goes?  Once a corporation gets ahold of a meme, it becomes instantly dated.  And now Sony is trying to cash in on meme culture by thinking they can give this box office bomb some new life and they can fast track more-bius.  Now hang on for a second, that fact about corporate meme culture is not always tru-

-kill it with fire.

So you're probably thinking.  Am I feeding into the meme trend by reviewing this?  You actually paid to see this- of course I didn't.  Why would I actually give my hard earned money to a studio like Sony that is forcing this alternate Spidey cinematic universe that I absolutely despise?  I've been begging for Sony to stop ruining live-action Spider-Man movies for ten years now.  I mean the movies aren't always awful, but Sony is absolutely doing this to keep the rights for as long as they inhumanely can.  At the very least, I'm glad Kevin Feige is stepping in to right the main Spider-Man movies that tie into the MCU.  Because god forbid they allow Sony themselves further desecrate these comic book live-action movies into the ground.  But to answer my own initial question, I found the movie online and watched a copy of it.  Sony is one of the few studios out there that can't figure out how to stop their films from being pirated.

So what do I think of Morbius?  It's awful.  It's like we never left the 1990s/early 2000s trends for superhero films.  Just like the Venom films before it.  But at least the Venom movies have fun with their absurdly dumb movies.  Morbius is just...there.  It exists.  That Morbius and his super generic adventure with super generic twists and turns and terrible acting.

Okay real critical analysis insight Morbin time (I did the meme, happy?).  It feels like the director Daniel Espinosa was handed a couple comic books by Sony; telling him that this is Morbius and make a movie about him.  He probably skimmed through it and checked through all the traditional points and then just utilized a bunch of cliches while Sony spoon fed him how they want this property to tie into their own Spidey-verse plans.  The acting is awful from damn near everybody.  I can slightly defend Matt Smith for being over the top ridiculous to the point that it gets a slight chuckle out of me.  Jared Leto continues his insufferable character acting that he's been doing ever since he won that Oscar almost ten years ago.  And the writing is incredibly tepid and uninspired.

The main bright spot for me was that the memes used to be hilarious.  Key word: used to be.  For example:

Hysterical.

And this was right when the Will Smith slap memes were still fresh and early in their lifespan too.

Look I enjoyed the meme for quite awhile too guys.  But if there was one thing that I saw a few weeks ago that rang absolutely true...it was this one:

I saw this one a few weeks ago and good lord was this ever so timely.  Because not too long after that was when Sony started to promote the meme to their own advantage:

Number one movie on the Apple TV app...not even Apple+, but Apple's outdated app for their TV service...and a new Marvel legend.

It was at that point, the meme started to become forced and I started to find everything tied to this less and less funny.  They couldn't just let this be the Sonic 06 of film and call it a day.  Nope.  Sony will continue to try and get every last cent out of their forced Spidey universe so they can profit off of it and never fully send the rights back to Marvel Studios.  Which for the record, I'm not for one studio to monopolize the business the way Disney has with getting all these properties.  But in Sony's case?  No, give it to the Mouse House.

That's why I'm writing this kind-of sort-of review.  Not to intentionally be a buzzkill, but to tell everyone that Morbius is really not the kind of bad movie that's worth peaking anyone's interest.

Final Grade: D