This review contains spoilers

Oh boy, that was a ride, and a fun one.

Of course, I had to see it because, hello, it’s got planes in it so that was a given, but I will admit I was intrigued by the number of positive reviews before I went. And I can say, this is absolutely the most unlikely case of a sequel being better than the original that I could ever have expected. The story’s tighter, the action scenes are spectacular, the characters are well developed and distinctive enough from each other… I would also say that it’s definitely one of these movies where it’s really worth watching it in theaters if you can, because the editing and photography are top notch.

The main draw of course is that the planes are real, and it’s really the actors in them (with the exception of the F-14 obviously). The enemy is unnamed, and probably the same “rogue nation” as in the first one, a mix of Soviet Russia (they have Mi-35 helos and the latest Sukhoi Su-57 fighters) and Iran (they also somehow have obsolete F-14s… and an “unsanctioned” nuclear program). The flight scenes are visceral, and you can see the Gs pile up on the actors’ faces in a way no CGI could reproduce. They used real F/A-18s and the actors had to learn to manage their own camera setup for flight scenes! The main action set piece is pretty much the Death Star run on Earth and it’s TENSE. It really works, to the extent you completely forget they’re pretty much starting a war as the “rogue country” hasn’t attacked the US at any point. But then again, they did that in the first one too…

Story-wise, you really have to give it up to Cruise for managing to play the same character convincingly some 35 years after the first film… But the emotional weight and really for me what made the story work, is Val Kilmer’s cameo, reprising his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. The character’s only there for two scenes and it’s really heartbreaking to see his ordeal knowing his illness isn’t an act (his few spoken lines are actually computer generated). I was glad to read after that unlike his character, Kilmer seems to have recovered for now. His scenes are the pivotal moment of the movie, the moment Mav finally learns to let go. The central conflict, once you understand where everyone’s coming from, is grounded and mostly believable, if you get past how old everyone is.

They lay it thick with the nostalgia bit, with an opening that’s a complete remake of the original with updated planes, and a whole lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) nods to the first movie. Spotting those is a lot of fun.

On the disappointing side, it’s a shame that Jennifer Connelly is so underutilized as Penny, Mav’s love interest. It feels like there was a whole lot of backstory or moments that stayed on the cutting room floor. She’s such a fine actress and she and Cruise have the right sort of chemistry together for it to work, but she’s just in the background.

As Cruise said, TGM is a love letter to aviation. It’s also a recruitment piece for naval aviation, we can’t ignore that, but it’s interesting because it doesn’t shy away from showing that, while being a fighter pilot is neat, it’s also fraught with danger, and not just from enemy fire: equipment failure, bird strikes, blackouts, these folks take off knowing there’s a chance they won’t come back. But it’s all worth it, because cloud dancing is the only thing that counts.

As an aviation nerd, will definitely see it again. 4.5/5