‘Top Gun: Maverick’ offers old-fashioned top entertainment

Cannes may usually approach film art with an appropriate seriousness, but the festival cannot do without a good portion of Hollywood glamour. The festival did everything it could to make superstar Tom Cruise’s lightning visit to Cannes as pleasant as possible for him. Cruise visited the festival on Wednesday for the European premiere of his new blockbuster, which has been delayed many times by Covid Top Gun: Maverick listen to.

Cannes wanted to know that too. The French Air Force even had a formation of fighter jets salute by flying low over the festival palace just as Cruise was on the red carpet with his actors. The fighter jets flew over twice at high speed unannounced, leaving three trails of smoke in the bleu, blanc, rouge of the French flag; a fitting tribute to Hollywood royalty.

Earlier on Wednesday, Cruise was awarded a special Golden Palm for his entire oeuvre. The usually media-shy star also allowed himself to be interviewed for 45 minutes in front of a hall with a thousand festival visitors by the French film journalist Didier Allouch. Not much came out of that, but Cruise had a catchy answer to the question why he always wants to do all his stunts himself: “You don’t ask Gene Kelly why he dances himself.”

The ideal movie star

Tom Cruise is an ideal film star for Cannes: like the festival itself, he is extremely attached to film traditions. For example, he said in Cannes that he had not considered for a second Top Gun: Maverick due to the covid vicissitudes to be released for streaming. “That really wasn’t going to happen.”

Cruise, who is also very active as a producer of his own films, makes his films exclusively for the cinema. “Working in front of a big screen requires a very special technique. I do know that after being shown in the cinema, films will also be seen in other ways. That’s fine. But the films are meant for the cinema.”

Top Gun: Maverick is indeed a film that really only comes into its own on a big screen. Then the film offers top entertainment. The original Top Gun from 1986 has not stood the test of time well. That film has since become a film classic that fans of ‘films that are so bad that they become good again’ watch for a good laugh. Also Top Gun: Maverick has its kitschy moments again. But overall, Cruise made for a really entertaining film. He has returned to his old role (Maverick) – with less swagger and more melancholy – and must prepare a new generation of magnificent fighter pilots for an almost impossible mission. Critically ill Val Kilmer reprises his old ‘Ice Man’ role in a touching cameo. Miles Teller confidently portrays the son of Cruise’s longtime companion Goose, who died tragically in the original film. Top Gun: Maverick is delicious old school popcorn cinema. Cannes is not averse to that either.