The Good

It's nice to see Paramount acknowledging a consumer's love of the 1980s.

The Bad

The double-dip nature of this release.Top Gun follows Maverick (Tom Cruise) a crack-shot jet pilot who is living in the shadow of his father and his past mistakes. Helping Maverick cope with this is Charlotte Blackwood (Kelly McGillis) and his bestfriend and wingman, Goose (Anthony Edwards). As Maverick enters the Top Gun ram he realizes just how hard life can be. He has old and new school fliers like Iceman Kazanksy (Val Kilmer) on his tail just waiting for him to mess up. Eventually, Maverick learns to live in peace with himself and his accomplishments but not before experiencing a fair amount of triumph and tragedy along the way.

This has always been one of those movies that has escaped me. I saw it in the theater in 1986 and I remember liking it but not knowing why it was so special. Rewatching it now I suppose I can see why people like it so much, but after Quentin Tarantino and so many others have put it through the shredder it sort of all seems a little silly now.

Features

As this release seems to be essentially a repackage of an older DVD release, I am simply going to list the extras out and not actually comment on them.

Commentary by Jerry Bruckheimer, Tony Scott and Naval Experts

4 Music Videos

TV Spots

Video

Widescreen Version enhanced for 16:9 TVs. This movie looked good. The problem in my home is that I have an HDTV but not a Blu-ray player. So when I review a movie like Top Gun I am only able to watch it in the standard format. This is fine but my eyes are getting trained to see the difference in standard and high definition programming. So, while I think this release looked good, I also noticed that the picture wasn't as crisp as maybe it could have been.

Audio

English 6.1 DTS Surround. Dolby Digital: English 5.1/ English 2.0 Surround/ French 2.0 Surround. Subtitled in English and Spanish. The audio for this release was good but I probably should have tested it out on a better system. So much of this release feels like a rehash that it was really hard to get excited about it.

Package

It is very telling when the packaging is the best part of the release. This cover featured Cruise and McGillis with the clouds behind them and a plane flying under them. Laid out all around this image were 1980s styled colors. The back covered featured another shot of Cruise, more clouds, a Special Features listing, a description of the film, a cast list and technical specs.

Final Word

You know, despite Tom Cruise seeming to have gone off the deep end in recent years, one must appreciate the remarkable run that he has had as an actor. In fact, it only seems like in his past few movies that he has been given to missteps and even there he hasn't faltered that badly. People often talk about Mission: Impossible III, but that film did $400 million worldwide. So maybe it could have done better but with a budget of $150 million it certainly wasn't a failure. Now Lions For Lambs didn't burn up the box office, I think this might have more to do with director Robert Redford telling people that the film wasn't breaking any new ground, than it was of people being tired of Tom Cruise. Just watch, he's gonna find his way back. I don't know that Valkyrie is going to make this happen but you can bet that it will.

If you don't already own this release I would suggest picking up the I Love the 80's version of Top Gun. Chances are one can even get it cheaper now than they could during any one of its initial releases.