Top Gun: Maverick

Jennifer Connelly and Tom Cruise gaze at each other next to a car, blurred mountains in the background, sunset lighting. Overlay: Mediaversity Grade C

“Women in Top Gun: Maverick don’t see much development, but written dialogue and camerawork treat them with respect.”

Title: Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Director: Joseph Kosinski 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Story by Peter Craig 👨🏼🇺🇸 and Justin Marks 👨🏼🇺🇸 and screenplay by Ehren Kruger 👨🏼🇺🇸, Eric Warren Singer 👨🏼🇺🇸, and Christopher McQuarrie 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

Technical: 4.75/5

Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick delivers high-octane action, executed to technical perfection. Set against a nostalgic soundtrack full of electric guitars and earworms, like Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” reprised from the first Top Gun (1986), viewers can comfortably lay back, kick up their feet, and enjoy this cinematic equivalent of a joyride. Is it deep? Hardly. Is the romance between U.S. Navy Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and bar owner Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) dull and unnecessary? Sure is. But no other film in recent memory featuring speed demons immerses the viewer so fully into the driver’s or pilot’s seat. Based on adrenaline and feel-good blockbuster vibes alone, what Kosinski achieves is still incredible.

Gender: 2.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

In a sea of Navy men (and men, and men), two female characters squeeze in a bit of screen time. For starters, Maverick’s love interest Penny is, well, generally defined by being a love interest. But she does cobble together some semblance of individuality through other details, such as having a teen daughter or demonstrating economic agency as the owner of a thriving bar.

In another supporting role, Maverick finds himself the reluctant teacher of a group of young pilots, including Lt. Natasha “Phoenix” Trace (Monica Barbaro). She doesn’t have much backstory or character development—that premium is afforded white male pilots only, such as Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), who has a history with Maverick, or the arrogant Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin (Glen Powell), who gets a small redemption arc. But Phoenix does share multiple scenes with her fellow lieutenants, and importantly, written dialogue and camerawork treat her with the utmost respect.

Race: 2/5

All of the film’s main characters, including Maverick, Rooster, Adm. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer), and Penny, are white. In supporting roles, racial diversity exists through Black, Latino, and East Asian pilots recruited to train for the film’s central stealth mission against a handwaved enemy country that is never revealed. Only two characters of color have more than just a few lines: Lt. Reuben “Payback” Fitch, played by Black actor Jay Ellis, and Lt. Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia, played by Colombian-Mexican American Danny Ramirez. In addition, Warrant Officer 1 Bernie “Hondo” Coleman (Bashir Salahuddin, who’s Black and Muslim) unequivocally supports Maverick from the sidelines. All of these characters are flat and written into shallow colorblind roles, but they’re positive and free of stereotypes.

Mediaversity Grade: C 3.08/5

Though peerless from the standpoints of action, music, and sound design, Top Gun: Maverick leans heavily on blockbuster beats you’ve seen time and time again. Thankfully, the film’s writing and direction didn’t feel the need to denigrate women and people of color; a low bar, yes, but one that other American military stories seem to have trouble clearing while Top Gun: Maverick soars right over.

Like Top Gun: Maverick? Try these other summer blockbusters.

Grade: CLiMarch 5, 2023