Top Gun: Maverick is an excellent sequel that does a great job of pushing the franchise forward and improving upon the original, but the movie still has several problems that audiences like to overlook thanks to its success. The project was a massive return to form for Tom Cruise, proving his value as Hollywood’s biggest movie star and allowing him to shine through an exciting, powerful, and memorable story. Top Gun: Maverick was an enormous success both commercially and critically, gathering over $1.4 billion at the box office and securing a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards.
Although Top Gun: Maverick is rightfully praised as a superior movie to the original, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Audiences have picked up on several narrative issues that hold this sequel back from true greatness, proving that there’s still room for improvement in any future installments that Cruise and McQuarrie want to make. Top Gun 3 could hopefully include these key ingredients that were either missing or weak in Top Gun: Maverick, though it still shone brighter than most other blockbusters of its time.
10 Top Gun: Maverick Ignores Major Characters From The Original Movie
One of the biggest complaints regarding Top Gun: Maverick is that it doesn’t always feel like a true successor to the original. With the exception of Tom Cruise’s lead character, there aren’t many connections to the story that came before it – which can sometimes feel like a disservice to fans of the first movie. The decision undeniably makes it easier for new audiences to jump into the story without having to catch up beforehand, but it would’ve been really nice to see a few other familiar faces in this story and bring their character arcs up to date.
9 Top Gun: Maverick Is The Nostalgia-Fest Everyone Usually Complains About
The huge amounts of praise for Top Gun: Maverick was actually a huge surprise, not because people were expecting the movie to fail, but simply because it’s exactly the kind of nostalgia-fuelled blockbuster that audiences are usually quick to criticize. Legacy sequels often come under fire for capitalizing on the success of projects that belong in the past, so it’s unusual that Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t hit with the same critiques. It’s a clear celebration of classic action movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s, but somehow it ends up working here.
8 Top Gun: Maverick’s Story Glosses Over Its Military Implications
One aspect of Top Gun: Maverick that’s just impossible to overlook is the military implications at the heart of the movie. The story has been described by some audiences as warfare propaganda, as it seemingly promotes the American military and its built-it concepts of patriotism and national pride. Some of these ideas can be a little problematic in today’s climate, but Top Gun: Maverick makes no attempts to criticize the institution that it’s presenting. There are hints toward Top Gun’s nameless ‘enemy’ against whom the military is fighting, but the entire storyline is pretty blurry.
7 Tom Cruise Totally Overshadows Top Gun: Maverick’s Supporting Cast
There’s no denying that Top Gun: Maverick is frequently a vessel to capitalize on Tom Cruise’s star power, but that unfortunately means that much of the supporting cast ends up getting sidelined. Characters like Rooster and Hangman have fascinating stories that are developed well, but Tom Cruise’s screen presence often makes it difficult for audiences to really invest in these other roles. He’s so prominent in the story that he quickly becomes the only character that viewers are really interested in – which can arguably be detrimental to the overall narrative.
6 Top Gun: Maverick’s Success Sends Hollywood The Wrong Message
Top Gun: Maverick was the biggest commercial success of 2022 – it’s one of the very few projects that has managed to gross over $1 billion since the COVID pandemic, pulling audiences to theaters like none others have managed. This success is great for the film industry, but it could send the wrong message to Hollywood. Legacy sequels are already very popular, but Top Gun: Maverick’s huge success has already begun to spawn a new wave of reboots and remakes – which, in turn, makes it harder for original stories to get written and made.
5 Top Gun: Maverick’s Penny Is An Underwritten Character
The majority of Top Gun: Maverick’s characters are interesting and entertaining, but Jennifer Connelly’s Penny is arguably the weakest new addition to the cast. She’s often demoted to just being Maverick’s love interest rather than having any agency and personality of her own, which is a pretty one-dimensional way of the character being written. Penny’s presence inarguably helps develop Maverick’s story, but that doesn’t necessarily run both ways. Ultimately, it’s easy to imagine Penny being replaced in this narrative by any other female character, which proves she wasn’t written strongly enough.
4 Top Gun: Maverick Doesn’t Address Maverick’s Previous Relationship
As many audiences have already pointed out, Penny’s character actually feels like a stand-in for Kelly McGillis’ Charlotte from the original movie. Instead, Charlotte becomes one of Top Gun: Maverick’s biggest character mysteries, as the movie completely fails to explain what happened to her in the decades since she was last seen. There may have been some legitimate behind-the-scenes reasons for McGillis’ absence, but Top Gun: Maverick still could’ve mentioned her – or at least explained how Maverick ended up single once again.
3 Top Gun: Maverick’s Opening Sequence Overshadows The Rest Of The Movie
There are plenty of exciting moments in Top Gun: Maverick, but the most entertaining scene in the entire movie arguably happens within the first ten minutes. In the sequence, Maverick is seen directly disobeying his superiors’ orders by attempting to fly his plane at Mach 10. It’s a great way of introducing the character and proving that he’s the same risky rule-breaker that he was in the original, but the rest of the movie actually struggles to capture the same visual, narrative, and sensory intensity as this moment.
2 Top Gun: Maverick Doesn’t Let Rooster Save The Day
Throughout Top Gun: Maverick, Miles Teller’s character Rooster is seemingly established as Maverick’s successor in his father’s footsteps. The pair end up working together in the final act to escape from the enemy base, overcoming their differences and finally starting to bond, but Glenn Powell’s Hangman ultimately comes and saves the day. It would’ve been a much stronger ending if Rooster had been able to save both himself and Maverick, following in his father’s footsteps and forcing Maverick to finally acknowledge his talent.
1 Top Gun: Maverick Isn’t As Grounded As The Original
It’s widely accepted that Top Gun: Maverick is a superior movie to the original, but there’s one area where Top Gun actually has the advantage. The 1986 movie is much more realistic and grounded than its sequel, giving the characters and their relationships much more attention. Top Gun: Maverick has a tendency to become too focused on the high-stakes action of the story, often neglecting its characters in favor of those memorable flight sequences. Top Gun might not have this level of technical prowess, but its character work is arguably better and definitely more refined.
