Post by Reno on Feb 22, 2006 4:30:33 GMT -5
Despite the fact that this movie is almost as old as I am, I saw this for the first time just a couple days ago, on Sunday afternoon. It was alright, though I'd hardly call it an 80's classic, personally.
Part of the problem is that I think WGN chopped the movie up a bit to fit it into a 2 hour time slot. I suspect some parts of scenes were cut, especially early in the movie. For example, in one scene, Maverick (Tom Cruise) is trying to pick up this girl (whose name escapes me, but she's the main actress in the movie, his love interest) in a bar, not realizing that she's an instructor at the Top Gun academy. Right after he does learn this, she says that she doesn't date students. Not 10 seconds later, in the next scene there they are, clearly on a date. That kind of unexplained jump only works in a sitcom, right after one character says to another "There's no way I'm gonna do that," and in the next scene there they are, wishing they'd never been persuaded to do it. Such a transition can't work in a movie like Top Gun, and so I imagine I must have missed something.
All that aside, I thought there was disappointingly little action for a movie about fighter pilots. Val Kilmer went to waste in this movie, because his character Iceman really had little character development, in my opinion. The only action in the movie that I can recall is Maverick's copilot dying after his head smashes into the cockpit roof when they hit the ejector, and a very brief combat scene at the end of the movie.
I'm not saying this movie was totally bad. Far from it. But I think that it could have been a lot more than it was. The thing I like best is the catchy theme song ("Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins), which is actually a pretty good theme song. When I first learned who did the song, I couldn't help but think of a line from the Bloodhound Gang song "Boom," that goes "like a Kenny Loggins record, no one's ever gonna hear ya." But then, they did a song with Vanilla Ice, so what do they know?
Part of the problem is that I think WGN chopped the movie up a bit to fit it into a 2 hour time slot. I suspect some parts of scenes were cut, especially early in the movie. For example, in one scene, Maverick (Tom Cruise) is trying to pick up this girl (whose name escapes me, but she's the main actress in the movie, his love interest) in a bar, not realizing that she's an instructor at the Top Gun academy. Right after he does learn this, she says that she doesn't date students. Not 10 seconds later, in the next scene there they are, clearly on a date. That kind of unexplained jump only works in a sitcom, right after one character says to another "There's no way I'm gonna do that," and in the next scene there they are, wishing they'd never been persuaded to do it. Such a transition can't work in a movie like Top Gun, and so I imagine I must have missed something.
All that aside, I thought there was disappointingly little action for a movie about fighter pilots. Val Kilmer went to waste in this movie, because his character Iceman really had little character development, in my opinion. The only action in the movie that I can recall is Maverick's copilot dying after his head smashes into the cockpit roof when they hit the ejector, and a very brief combat scene at the end of the movie.
I'm not saying this movie was totally bad. Far from it. But I think that it could have been a lot more than it was. The thing I like best is the catchy theme song ("Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins), which is actually a pretty good theme song. When I first learned who did the song, I couldn't help but think of a line from the Bloodhound Gang song "Boom," that goes "like a Kenny Loggins record, no one's ever gonna hear ya." But then, they did a song with Vanilla Ice, so what do they know?