Review of Top Gun (1986) by Adam R — 05 Feb 2013

Top Gun is a film that will be a guilty pleasure for a lot of people but really (in my opinion) has not held up well with age. What you are watching is pretty much a typical 80's 'boys' film.

There's two things I feel is most memorable about Top Gun. The first is the action scenes. Whilst there are not too many, the dog fights in the air are worth seeing. At a time before CGI took over the Hollywood blockbuster, what you see is what you get. Seeing the planes fly in and out whilst ducking the enemy is fun to watch. Top Gun will also be remembered for the music. Unlike most films that may have just the one song to open the film or to play over the credits, Top Gun scatters them throughout the feature. These are your classic 80's tunes that are easily listenable outside of the film. They don't add much to the film but it does make the action scenes that extra bit special.

The story is simple but there isn't much to it. This is one of the major problems I had with it. I didn't feel there was enough story put into the characters meaning I didn't find myself caring too much about them. Dialogue isn't anything special and at times came across as sounding 'cheesy'. There is a major moment in the story that occurs which leads the main character in a different direction. If this happened earlier in the film, it could have really built up decent story for him. However, it happens too late in the story and any potential routes are dropped in order to wind up the full plot.

Top Gun does have its fans out there but for me it was nothing special. It consists of a story which was begging for more, along with moments and dialogues that didn't fit at all after 1986.