Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Same bar, new beach game, another smirking rival, the same lecture about being too reckless. Top Gun: Maverick is a remake wearing a sequel’s flight jacket, right down to the mustache on Goose’s kid. The enemy is a country the movie never names, flying jets with pilots whose faces you never see, so the stakes stay oddly abstract. None of it matters. Joseph Kosinski puts the camera right inside the jets, and you can watch the actors’ faces getting squished by speed. Tom Cruise plays Maverick as a guy who refuses to get old out of pure spite. Miles Teller makes Rooster’s grudge feel earned, and Glen Powell’s Hangman is so full of himself you start to love him. Val Kilmer’s one scene lands harder than anything in the original. It made $1.5 billion worldwide with an A+ CinemaScore. A 9.1 because it takes a story you’ve seen and flies it better than anyone has. $1,387 says you check your watch after the final mission and realize you forgot to breathe.

What works: The flying feels physical and real, Cruise is fully committed, and the Rooster storyline gives the action actual weight.

What doesn’t: It copies the first movie’s beats almost scene for scene, and a nameless, faceless enemy keeps the stakes vague.

Who it’s for: Anyone who wants the biggest possible screen and loudest possible speakers, plus people who rolled their eyes at the original.