As far as movies that are so bad that they're good, it's incredibly difficult to come up against Tony Scott's Top Gun. I first saw it on television in junior high school while under the influence of more than one inebriating substances and didn't like it at all. Since then, Top Gun has ended up on my TV well over a dozen times and I've never changed the channel. There are very few bad movies that spur me to return in that way.
Most of the film's allure comes from the abundant, arguably unintended homoerotic subtext of the movie, which centers on the titular class of ace air-force pilots who go head-to-head to be called the very best in the American sky. On the face of all of this, however, the movie is simply about how Maverick must realize his unique greatness and alpha-male bonafides to truly get over the death of his father, his best friend, and the cutting criticisms of his mentors, and become the best pilot that ever did live.
A sequel to Scott's unlikely hit would have been explainable maybe two-to-five years after the original was released but, as it turns out, Paramount waited for a few decades to take the idea seriously. So now, we're faced with Top Gun: Maverick, an unwanted sequel that looks to reunite stars Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in their original roles. The film has no director right now, though Tron: Legacy and Oblivion helmer Joseph Kosinski has been rumored to be the frontrunner, but now it does indeed have a release date: July 12th, 2019.
If the movie is meant to be a spectacle, like the original, this is a prime release date for Paramount. One might have hoped that a sequel to such an inconsequential movie might have attempted to touch on any number of major modern issues connected to the film's focus on the armed forces - the state of veterans affairs, just for starters - but that does not seem particularly likely considering the pedigree of the original. Nevertheless, if history is any indicator, I will have purchased a ticket and will have my ass firmly in seat by the time July 12th, 2019 gets here.
