I was skeptical—and it was totally cheesy and totally derivative—but damn that was a great watch.
Agree with
@auror ’s review in pretty much every respect, except that I saw it in a normal theater and didn’t feel gypped. It’s just a good, old fashioned action movie experience, and we haven’t had that experience in a movie theater in a long time.
Got around to seeing it yesterday. Had to see it on a regular screen since the Jurassic movie took over the local IMAX screens.
Overall, good, cheesy movie. Thought they did a nice job of giving Iceman a good sendoff.
Obviously a bazillion plot holes or suspension of belief to make the movie and the characters work.
Two which stood out the most to me were the location of the nuclear enrichment plant and younger pilots not knowing who Maverick was or Rooster's background. A country as big as Iran isn't building anything, no matter how well protected by mountains and valleys that close to the coast. And no way, within the fighter community of pilots, is a guy like Maverick not known to every single pilot. Same for Rooster. If there is a pilot who had previously gone through Top Gun and who had a father killed in a combat aircraft, everyone would know that story.
Earlier in this thread I mentioned I know one of the pilots who flew several of the stunts. He's the guy talking in the podcast, Frank Weisser. Some of those shots of the back of Maverick's head were actually Weisser's. Several of those low level shots of the Hornet flying in the desert were Weisser as well. He's a real good dude and probably just made himself a second career doing action shots in movies or working with movie companies on how to actually fly or create a simulation.
As an old Tomcat mechanic I thought they did a great job on a few technical aspects.
-14 shown in the movie had the older Pratt and Whitney engines on it (You can tell by the exhaust nozzle shape) which would have been the configuration Iran bought prior to the Revolution. When Maverick went to start it up, they did a good job explaining how Rooster would have to turn on the air cart to provide forced air to start rotating the engine.
Also, having Rooster close up the step ladder and climbing on the left horizontal stab is how the aircrew would actually do this if there was no ground support crew.
As someone who directly worked on the system, I found the images of Rooster being in the back seat with about 200 circuit breakers spot on. Those systems sucked and were a constant source of pain.
Those P&W engines were notorious for compressor stalls causing an engine flameout and Maverick once again had to deal with that as he approached the ship.
As Maverick approached the boat and they showed the rigging of the barricade also brough back fond/crappy memories. That drill is practiced at least once a week on the ship and it works just like the movie showed it. However, once it crashed and stopped moving no one would be allowed anywhere near that plane until they got the aircrew out safely and doused it with plenty of water to make sure there wasn't anything that would combust.
I spent some of my time in the Navy with VF-41 Black Aces so seeing Phoenix wearing the squadron patch on her flight suit and helmet was neat.
