REVIEW: Top Gun
Our salute to Gay Pride Month continues, as we the Knights of the Bad Movie bring you our review of the 1986 classic, Top Gun.
Top Gun was a breakthrough movie for Tom Cruise, because it propelled him to superstardom and also became the prototype template for all of the movies he made thereafter. Tom Cruise stars as Lt. Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick. Again another important point about Top Gun, is that Maverick became the last character Tom Cruise ever played. Moving on from this film, he eventually used Maverick in every film he acted in after this.
Top Gun on paper is about a flight school designed to improve the dog-fighting skills of pilots (or naval aviators), but under the surface this movie is nothing more than glorified gay pornography. Loaded with sexual innuendos, some implied, other's blatantly thrown in your face (all over your face), Top Gun quickly evolves into a sausage fest in the air.
Maverick along with his partner and navigator Goose (played by the great Anthony Edwards....is it a coincidence that Maverick's partner's name is a term defined as 'grabbing another man's genitals' or perhaps I'm reading into this too much? Perhaps not.) are invited to the Top Gun Academy where they are united with a large group of fellow homosexual pilots. Maverick and Goose meet their eventual nemesis's (frustrated lovers) Iceman (played by Val Kilmer) and Slider (played by Rick Rossovich, a dude who's career includes being killed by Ah-Nuld in the Terminator and playing a Navy Seal, in ...um....Navy Seals) who they go toe to toe with throughout the film. The only woman at this bathhouse with wings is 'Charlie' played by Kelly McGillis, who has the sex appeal of a walrus with a mullet.
Top Gun jabs at us with some spectacular dog fighting sequences between the pilots and their instructors, one of whom is played by the great Michael Ironside. He plays Jester, and in doing so, this marks the first known occurrence of the Ironside Agenda, as Mr. Ironside manages not only to out act everyone in the film, but also portray the only heterosexual in the film. Preceding take off of one of these dog fights, on the runway, Maverick and Goose layout the one line that sums this whole disaster up. 'I feel the need. The need for speed.' Let me just say this. You feel the 'need' gentleman, but it certainly isn't for speed.
Top Gun is also seasoned with a very masculine volleyball game between Maverick and Goose, and Iceman and Slider. These pairs do everything together which makes me wonder what else they do besides fly planes and beach sports. This could be by far the gayest scene in the movie.....3 shirtless men (Anthony Edwards must have been adamant about not joining this sand orgy, thus being the only combatant wearing a shirt) playing volleyball while Kenny Loggin's sings 'Playing with the Boys'....wow! Innuendo, or right in your face? By the way, who the hell plays volleyball in their jeans? Oh yeah Maverick does.
We are also mildly distracted by a love affair between Maverick and Charlie, which while being a complete waste of time in Top Gun, does provide us an opportunity to go to the bathroom, get a beer, or mow the lawn. How Kelly McGillis became a femal lead is beyond me. The woman is not attractive, and she can't really act? I suspect she had some incriminating photos of director Tony Scott. Much like the movie Top Gun itself, her role is pointless and irrelevant. Frankly if this failed attempt at making Maverick appear straight wasn't in the movie, this film probably would have been a pretty decent air battle movie. However, this jacuzzi created by Top Gun is one they will never emerge from.
Fortunately for Goose he leaves the film with some dignity by dying (this is a spoiler by the way) and of course Maverick faced with adversity, quits like a pussy (see Youngblood, this is a recurring theme in these movies by the way, as our heroes have some problems then run away from them....teaching us that quitting is cool!) and runs away, only to have the head instructor have him say some nice things about his dad to inspire him to return and graduate from the Top Gun Academy. Try that at your job next time. Quit, and then come back a week later....I'm sure everything will be just fine, and your employer and co-workers will be waiting for you with open arms.
Top Gun does end with a pretty sweet air battle between us and those evil Russian bastards (remember it's 1986 so it's totally cool to hate them). It's funny how American made planes can sustain massive amounts of damage and either continue flying or leave it's occupants time to eject to safety. Not so, with Russian made jets. These flying Pintos explode if they hit clouds. The finale concludes with Maverick and Iceman saving the day, and then on the deck of an aircraft carrier, surrounded by hundreds of men....embrace. Long and hard.
As I said earlier, Top Gun, minus everything that doesn't involve plane battles would have been outstanding. However, it's loaded (and I mean loaded) with much more than that...and thus robs itself of multiple Hamlins.
Hamlin Grade: 2
Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
pat
Comments
Outstanding! Brings to mind Quentin's take on Top Gun:
Quentin's Monologue from 'Sleep With Me'
Originally written by Roger Avary
What's a film about, what's it really about? What genre does it take?
[Duane: What, like the spine? Like one sentence?]
No, I don't, fucking boy meets girl, I don't give a shit about that. Fuck boy meets girl, fuck motorcycle movie. No, what is really being said? What's really being said, that's what you're talking about. 'Cause the whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level. You know what one of the greatest fucking scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? Top Gun.
[Duane: Oh, come on.]
Top Gun is fucking great. What is Top Gun? You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots. [Duane: It's about a bunch of guys waving their dicks around.] It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man.
You've got Maverick, all right? He's on the edge, man. He's right on the fucking line, all right? And you've got Iceman, and all his crew. They're gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they're saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways.
[Duane: What about Kelly McGillis?]
Kelly McGillis, she's heterosexuality. She's saying: no, no, no, no, no, no, go the normal way, play by the rules, go the normal way. They're saying no, go the gay way, be the gay way, go for the gay way, all right? That is what's going on throughout that whole movie...
He goes to her house, all right? It looks like they're going to have sex, you know, they're just kind of sitting back, he's takin' a shower and everything. They don't have sex. He gets on the motorcycle, drives away. She's like, "What the fuck, what the fuck is going on here?" Next scene, next scene you see her, she's in the elevator, she is dressed like a guy. She's got the cap on, she's got the aviator glasses, she's wearing the same jacket that the Iceman wears. She is, okay, this is how I gotta get this guy, this guy's going towards the gay way, I gotta bring him back, I gotta bring him back from the gay way, so I'm do that through subterfuge, I'm gonna dress like a man. All right? That is how she approaches it.
Okay, now let me just ask you--I'm gonna digress for two seconds here. I met this girl Amy here, she's like floating around here and everything. Now, she just got divorced, right?...
All right, but the REAL ending of the movie is when they fight the MIGs at the end, all right? Because he has passed over into the gay way. They are this gay fighting fucking force, all right? And they're beating the Russians, the gays are beating the Russians. And it's over, and they fucking land, and Iceman's been trying to get Maverick the entire time, and finally, he's got him, all right? And what is the last fucking line that they have together? They're all hugging and kissing and happy with each other, and Ice comes up to Maverick, and he says, "Man, you can ride my tail, anytime!" And what does Maverick say? "You can ride mine!" Swordfight! Swordfight! Fuckin' A, man!
And on a similar note, from the June 1995 Details profile of Val Kilmer:
He got all buffed out for the role of Iceman, Tom Cruise's adversary, and while he didn't like the script ("I turned it down at first, but Paramount had an option they exercised, so I had to do it"), Top Gun remains a key film of the '80s--the most representative of not only what was wrong with movies but what was wrong with this country's values. It's also the most unintentionally gay movie ever made by a big studio, so homoerotic it's like some kind of camp joke. It's impossible to watch it without thinking of Quentin Tarantino's hilarious monologue about the movie's gay subtext in the we're-hip-screenwriters-in-Hollywood flick Sleep With Me, which Kilmer hasn't seen. All he'll say about the above, while smiling, is "Oh yeah?"
C'mon, Val. When were we all fucking born? Yesterday? The day before that? We know you sit around at 4a.m. with your VCR and a copy of Sleep With Me, holding your head in your hands, moaning, "What have I done? Dear God, what have I DONE?!" C'mon, Batguy, 'fess up.
Posted by: Big Daddy Yum Yum | June 10, 2006 01:51 PM
Big Daddy, I did this review for you. The one thing about Tarantino's assessment, is his sum up at the end. The final line was, "You can be my wing man anytime", not you can ride my tail. Projection on Quentin's part...perhaps?
Posted by: pat | June 10, 2006 11:02 PM
Outstanding! Nice catch. And by catch I mean . . . ahem. Projection indeed.
Posted by: Big Daddy Yum Yum | June 11, 2006 02:23 AM
BDYY, I remember the scene in that movie, and laughed my ass off throughout, but when he pulled that final line, he did it to cater to his 'theory', rather than present the actual facts. It kind of ruined it for me, because up until that point I thought it was brilliant!
I think I hit a bunch of points that he didn't catch. Hope you liked it dude! More to come!
Posted by: Bosh | June 11, 2006 11:02 AM
The last line ruined it for you? You have got to be kidding me! So what if he changed it a little to make his point, it's funnier that way. Plus, wing man really means riding tail. It's like I don't even know you anymore.
Posted by: fletch | June 11, 2006 02:52 PM
Fuck You! It's gotta be true! Gotta stay true to the code! Gay men know that wing don't mean tail in any kind of code! No how, no way! And Val Kilmer is a bunk-ass-bitch in anyone's book.
Posted by: Big Daddy Yum Yum | June 11, 2006 11:43 PM
Haha Fletch you dick head! Way to go Bid Daddy!
Posted by: pat | June 12, 2006 10:07 AM
Well Pat, looks like you found a friend. Sounds like your someone's wing man Mr. Yum Yum.
Posted by: fletch | June 12, 2006 01:19 PM
Wait...fletch is that....oh yes...sand in your vagina. So sorry.
Posted by: pat | June 12, 2006 02:25 PM