How "Top Gun" succeeds in not making us angry

Tom Cruise takes to the skies in 1986’s “Top Gun.” (Paramount Pictures/MovieStillsDB.com)

"Top Gun"
Released May 16, 1986
Directed by Tony Scott
Where to Watch

There are few films as inoffensively pro-military as "Top Gun." Tony Scott's 1986 action movie bathes everybody, from the characters to the jet planes they climb into, in the light of golden sunsets, while the enemies are both faceless and nameless. It's a big reason why it's endured over the decades because even in an era where somebody can find a reason to get angry at something, audiences have a hard time getting worked up about anything in "Top Gun."

That's not to say that there are moments where we don't roll our eyes at the corniness of it all because when your rebellious lead character is literally named Maverick, the deep themes subtly go out the window. But when a genre movie succeeds at being good when it has to be, it fills us with enough satisfaction to allow us to ignore the flaws.

Speaking of Maverick, he's played by Tom Cruise, then at the childhood stage of his movie career. Cruise's unique style of confidence and million-dollar smile needed a perfect role to help him vault into superstardom, and "Top Gun" was it. It's really our first introduction to Crusie's daredevil tendencies that win over audiences and would continue long into his career over several decades.

We meet Maverick and his co-pilot Goose (Anthony Edwards) just as they're called up to TOPGUN, the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program where "the best of the best" pilots train. Maverick almost immediately ruffles everybody's feathers because he tends to disobey orders, hot dogs during flights, and perform hazardous maneuvers in the air. At the top of the list is a rival pilot, Iceman (Val Kilmer), who thinks Maverick's actions put all other pilots in danger. Guess which one of these two keeps cool under pressure? You're never gonna guess.

The one thing that does catch Maverick's eye is Charlie (Kelly McGillis), a civilian TOPGUN instructor who begins to fall for the rebellious pilot. I'm not going to say anything more about the romance subplot, which is so by the numbers that barely anybody notices when Charlie conveniently leaves town in the third act and then returns in the final frame. I fell asleep just typing that, so signal officer, what do you say we get back to the main event – dogfights with jets.

The flight scenes are easily the high points of "Top Gun." Scott found very inventive ways to shoot action footage, including on the ground, cockpit shots, in the air in another plane, and even mounting cameras on the exterior of the jets themselves to display their unique points of view. Dialogue from the pilots and control help narrate the action, as Scott works through fast cuts and the occasional flight money shot every 15 seconds or so to keep audiences engaged.

You'll note through the scene that the nationality of these antagonizing jets is never revealed. "Top Gun" is a movie that is more interested in celebrating the concept of Navy pilots than forcing them into an ideological conflict. It's led to criticism that the film is little more than a two-hour Navy recruitment commercial, which is fair. "Top Gun" is not the only jingoistic entertainment of its era, with movies like 1985's "Rambo" and animated toy lines like GI Joe celebrating the might of the American military. But because "Top Gun" never gives us the stereotypical villain often in these kinds of projects, it's easier to skate by that criticism with an "it is what it is" shrug.

Not to bag on the romance storyline again, but it's also telling that the second most talked about feature of "Top Gun" is the homoerotic subtext lying throughout the film. The conversations between pilots, particularly Maverick and Iceman, sound closer to flirting and jealousy than one might expect from military men. The movie's women have little to do than acutely focus on Maverick's current emotional state, with no interior lives to speak of. And of course, we can't let a "Top Gun" retrospective without referencing the infamous volleyball scene, of which the A.V. Club notes "there's really no narrative purpose" to it.

But you know, boys will be boys: Oiling each other up, smacking some balls around in jeans, and randomly practicing bodybuilding poses between sets. Now I believe in these times we call these situations a thirst trap; ain't that right, signal officer?

"Top Gun" was conceived after producer Jerry Bruckheimer read an article about the actual life pilot school program and imagined a story about Star Wars on earth. Bruckheimer and his producer partner Don Simpson recruited Tony Scott to direct the project after seeing a commercial he helmed for Saab that featured a jet fighter. Scott didn't realize it at the time, but that commercial made him one of the only people with the necessary experience filming jets. It also helped revitalize his career after the failure of his first film, 1983's "The Hunger."

When Scott signed onto "Top Gun," he pivoted away from the desired tone of "Apocalypse Now" to something more similar to the popcorn movies of the 80s. In an era where music videos dominated pop culture, Scott also incorporated music into the film, believing the pilots were the rock and roll stars of the sky.

"Nobody quite understood what I was trying to do," Scott said in the retrospective feature, "Danger Zone: The Making of Top Gun." They thought it was going to be 'The Hunger' on an aircraft carrier. There was a lot of trepidation on what was going to work or not work."

Well, it worked. "Top Gun" was a massive success at the box office, opening at number one with an $8.2 million gross and rarely slipping from the top five films of the weekend for five months. "Top Gun" topped out at $176.8 million domestically during its original run, quickly becoming the highest-grossing film of 1986.

While audiences were very enthusiastic about "Top Gun," critics remained mixed in their reviews. The movie currently has an 83 percent approval rating from the public and 57 percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

"'Top Gun' settles fairly quickly into alternating ground and air scenes, and the simplest way to sum up the movie is to declare the air scenes brilliant and the earthbound scenes grimly predictable," wrote Roger Ebert in his original review. "This is a movie that comes in two parts: It knows exactly what to do with special effects, but doesn't have a clue as to how two people in love might act and talk and think."

In any event, "Top Gun" is one of the 80s movies that has stayed in our cultural memories, which is impressive for a movie that never had a sequel … until now. Cruise is set to return in "Top Gun: Maverick," set for release on July 2, 2021, after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the original release date back a year. Judging by the trailer, the new movie looks like it's advanced upon the original's jet photography, but no word on if it honors the legacy with an uncomfortably sexy pointless scene between grown adults. Signal officer, you in?