I enjoyed Maverick, but mostly because of the action scenes, which were really riveting. The rest of the movie suffers from the same problems as modern blockbusters do.
Spoiler
The callbacks to the original were pretty egregious and had me rolling my eyes a few times. Like the opening scene being, pretty much shot for shot, the same as the original. Or having that dong Miles Teller playing "Great balls of fire" with his mates. We get it, he's Goose's son, do we really have to go there? Or that football scene on the beach, you know because of the volleyball scene in the original? FFS.
Then you have that completely bland, tedious and intrusive romantic storyline with Jennifer Connelly. I know it's a Hollywood mandate to always have a romantic angle for a blockbuster, but can you at least make it a little... I don't know, sexier? The original wasn't perfect, but at least the romance had a bit of flavour, compared to this boring shit. And the way it was treated, like it was another of those callbacks to the original when we don't know anything about her, their relationship, and frankly, nobody gives a shit. Just piss off movie.
Then you have the endless stream of shallow, indistinctive side characters that are introduced. Other than Goose's son being an annoying pussy, and that other annoying twat that looked like a cross between Iceman and Maverick, I can't remember anything about the other pilots, even the ones selected for the mission. They just seemed to have been chosen because of a diversity mandate, but showed no actual pilot skills. I don't know how Hollywood does it, but the way young actors these days don't show a modicum of personality or any distinctive trait is quite astonishing. It's no wonder why they still need an almost 60 years old Tom Cruise to be the face of an action movie. It won't be long before they are replaced by CGI too.
And then the last third came and saved the fucking movie. Even if it lacked a "Goose's death" moment, which wouldn't have worked anyway as nobody gives a fuck about the side characters, it was pretty great. You could actually feel the weight of the planes, and the G force in the actor's faces. If there's a lesson to be learned from this movie for Hollywood, is that practical effects are just a better and more effective way of portraying action scenes. "Mad Max: Fury Road" had already shown this, but maybe the financial success of this movie, will make the studios turn away from the CGI fuckfest that are current blockbusters. I doubt it, but here's hoping.
Still, they have to end the movie on the blandest more cynical fucking note possible. With a commercial-looking shot of Cruise and Connelly, leaning on her Porsche, kissing at a sunset. All I could think of, other than ugh, was that Porsche must have paid a lot for that single shot.
