Top Guns

Gunning To Glory

Top Gun
Directed by Tony Scott
USA 1986
Paramount Pictures Blu Ray Zone B

and

Top Gun: Maverick
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
USA 2022
Paramount Pictures Blu Ray Zone B

The first of an occasional series of double, triple and quadruple bills, mostly because I don’t have much to say about any of them as a single movie, truth be told.

Warning: Some spoilers.

I’ve never watched any of the Top Gun films before now. I wasn’t a fan of the young Tom Cruise (and think he’s absolutely great in his later career) and I really didn’t want to watch what amounts to a dressed up Navy recruitment movie. Added to this, I used to work in a record store on Saturdays at the time of the first film, while I was going through college and, honestly, that rubbishy best selling songtrack album was horrible to have to endure week after week.

However, my mother accidentally caught the recent sequel on telly last year and liked it a lot and so, as one of her Christmas presents this year, I got her the double Blu Ray pack of both movies. So, yeah, guess what I had to watch over Christmas this year?

Okay, so both movies are pretty much the same but they are different in the way they do it. Of the two, I think the first one by uber director Tony Scott is the less interesting. It’s not a great movie but it’s not downright terrible either. Just a film about Tom Cruise playing Maverick, a best of the best trainee pilot at the Top Gun flight school in the Navy. His co-pilot is Goose, played by Anthony Edwards (and Goose’s wife is played by Meg Ryan) and Maverick’s high profile rival is Iceman (played by Val Kilmer). Maverick’s love interest is played by Kelly McGillis.

The story is just toned down Porkys humour coupled with fast flying, naval cadets not doing what they’re told, a tragic loss to add a dash of drama and the obvious combat scene at the end. I’m guessing it must have somehow caught a mood at that point in the 1980s which I just wasn’t a part of.

However, it is directed by Tony Scott so there is some great photography and a few moments when he goes ‘full Bava’ on the colour palette, such as when Maverick is cradling Goose’s head (who promptly dies) as they float in the sea waiting for rescue. Harold Faltermeyer’s score is okayish (not as brilliant as Beverly Hills Cop and Fletch) but it didn’t really make much of an impact on me until it was extensively re-used by Hans Zimmer in the sequel, to be honest. Or maybe the mix in the second one was just kinder to it.

Top Gun Maverick hits all the same beats more or less. A still arrogant Maverick is called in to teach a bunch of Top Gun graduates how to pull off an almost impossible mission in a limited timeline. Miles Teller is playing Rooster, son of Goose, so that Maverick has a dramatic arc of survivor’s guilt via the offspring of his old co-pilot. The always watchable Jennifer Connolly plays his new love interest but, yeah, it’s not too hard to pick up on the fact that this is an old and troublesome flame who is mentioned by name a few times in the first film (just never seen until now). Val Kilmer is back as Iceman, suffering from the same illness as the actor did in real life.

The sequel is pretty much the same thing but it seems more interesting and I suspect that’s more to do with the contemporary language and the attitudes in this one, even though they’re employed to tell a similar story. And not just a similar story to Top Gun either... you’ll recognise many aspects of the final mission they are working towards as being exactly the same as the Death Star run in the original Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope and reviewed by me here). They even have a Top Gun equivalent of Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is no try.” added into the mix.

Zimmer’s score, which highlights Faltermeyer’s old themes, seems much more epic and useful to the film as a whole (I liked it when I saw him do it in concert at one of his live shows too) and, all in all, Top Gun Maverick is a less bitter pill to swallow. I also trust the older version of Tom Cruise more and find him eminently more watchable than he was as a youngster.

All in all, then, I didn’t have a terrible time with either Top Gun or Top Gun Maverick... I can appreciate the second one more. Neither of them are great films but I can understand, I think, why people gravitate to them. You might well be one of those people so, yeah, please don’t take my word for it.

Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F

A Piece Of The Axel

Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F
aka Beverly Hills Cop 4
Directed by Mark Molloy
USA 2024

Warning: Slight spoilers.

Axel Foley is back... finally. Played once more by Eddie Murphy, this movie completely ignores the pilot film for the proposed TV show and puts Axel F back on the streets as opposed to running the station, his TV son now swapped out for an estranged movie daughter (which, aside from the huge continuity errors made by conflicting events in the pilot movie, also screws up the third movie, where he had no children but the daughter is therefore a couple of years older than she should be here... if audiences can spot these things, why can’t the actual writers?).

The plot set up on Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F is simple but good fun. Billy Rosewood, played again by Judge Reinhold, is out on a case which will clear a suspect in jail from being a cop killer. But he gets too close and is kidnapped and held by ‘the bad guys’ to try and get the evidence they know he has on them. But not before he has engaged Axel’s daughter, played by Taylour Paige, to clear the suspect of the charges (she is a lawyer) and also not before he calls in Axel, because he’s worried for her safety after she is almost killed and threatened to drop the case (something he knows she won’t do).

Other series regulars include Paul Reiser who has now taken over from the former chief back in Axel’s regular stomping ground, John Ashton as Taggart, Billy’s ex-partner who is now running the precinct in Beverly Hills and a, not exactly surprising but welcome return of Serge in a scene, played once again by Bronson Pinchot. Also new to the cast, asides from Taylour Paige, is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as another cop in Billy’s precinct (who also has a dating history with Axel’s daughter), Luis Guzmán  as a criminal kingpin and Kevin Bacon as an FBI man who, you just know is going to turn out to be the villain of the piece as soon as his first scene hits.

And it’s a great little movie, it has to be said... harkening right back to the origins of the character (as released, not the Stallone version) with Eddie Murphy playing it relatively straight (asides from his usual wise cracks) and with an equal emphasis on action, rather than just comedy (just like in the original, when you actually cared about the characters somewhat.... which follows through here). It might seem a little slow at times to a younger audience expecting just endless carnage but it’s a nice little homage to the original and it pretty much hits all the right beats. You also get a snow plough chase and a helicopter chase thrown in for good measure.

One of the nicest things for me, though, was the music. Not just the brilliant score but also the use of songs. At least three of the songs were used front and centre in the first movie and, here, they’re used in a similar fashion. In fact, the first song of the movie is Glenn Frey doing The Heat Is On and it really brought back memories of me sitting in a cinema in the early 1980s with a dear, now departed friend. 

Similarly, the underscore is absolutely spot on. This time around they’ve got a modern composer who I quite like, Lorne Balfe... but he uses all of the old Harold Faltermeyer themes (such as Axel F, Shoot Out etc) and he orchestrates the synthesiser work, to my ears at least, exactly as Faltermeyer did in the first two movies. It’s absolutely brilliant.

So, yeah, a short review and my only problem with the movie is that it was funded by an evil ‘cinema killing’ company who have hogged it for their own channel rather than get the cinema release it deserves. I’m guessing this means I won’t be able to buy a copy on Blu Ray either, which is a problem for me (not an ‘official’ Blu Ray but there may be other options). At least a CD soundtrack is coming though, I believe (although I’d also like a CD for the third movie too, please). So, yeah, I’d almost rather the movie never got made than be financed and distributed by said evil corporation but, as it is, Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F is an absolutely wonderful and entertaining sequel and doesn’t let the original movies down in any way. Worth checking out, if only to remind yourself that Eddie Murphy can do some pretty good acting when he puts his mind to it. Just waiting to see if they do a Yet Another 48 Hours next.