Saturday, July 20, 2019

Top Gun: Whatever...



Surprising no one, the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick was released into the ongoing two-year drought of anything watchable from Hollyweird, and it's now the top trailer (13M sets of eyeballs when last we looked), even though it's a year from coming out. Current movies are, in fact, that bad. We caught it yestermorning on Daily Timewaster's blog, and we give the whole idea of a sequel a hearty..."Meh."

First, let's re-visit Tony Scott's iconic offering from 1986. Tony Scott, Ridley's brother, mainly made commercials, both before and after this flick. He inarguably was one of the masters of that genre, which is making something sexy for 30-90 seconds. In that light, the original Top Gun can be more easily understood, because on its best day, it was a child's craft camp necklace of thirty or forty commercials, strung together, somewhat coherently. The story was fantastic compared to, say, a move from Stanley Kubrick or Robert Altman, but compared to one from Tony's brother Ridley, or fifty other feature film director, not so much.

Secondly, the only thing they got right at the time about the actual Top Gun school then at Miramar, (now? IDK. Someone in comments will certainly let me know.) was that it was, in fact, at Miramar, and run by the Navy. Actual Navy pilots, then or now, will happily confirm there is no trophy, and that Pete "Maverick" Mitchell would have been cheerfully booted right the eff out before he started, and not even been missed, then or any other time. And that everything else in the movie was contrived bullshit.

Because Top Gun isn't to see who the best fighter pilot is, it's to take guys who've never been in combat, and teach them how to survive it (at odds of 1v1, 2v1, 1v2, and 1v?), by using their strengths and weakness - every aircraft has those - and then, the really important part - taking those lessons back to the other 12-30 pilots and aircrews in their squadron, and teaching what they learned back there, because the Navy can't rotate everyone in every squadron through Top Gun every year. It's a train-the-trainer class. Band camp, not March Madness double eliminations. Like NTC for the Army, the instructors there are the best of the best, they'll always whack the students every time, until the students, having had the lessons and performance envelope of their aircraft beaten into their heads, can achieve bare parity against guys with 2-5X the flight hours doing ACM, air combat maneuvering. Which is what "dogfighting" goes by, as a handle, lately.

Near total bullshit, militarily. Cinematically: awesome to watch.

This is the same thing John Boyd beat into the Air Farce's head, for exactly the same reason the missiles-only approach failed in the Air Farce, and their result was Red Flag, where they teach similar lessons. E.g, most pilots are killed in their first five combat missions, so why not make those first five in a classroom at full reality, rather than when their lives are actually at stake? Genius. But since Air Force, they do rotate entire squadrons through, and pile in every mission they do in exercises, not just fighter jock ACM.
(There's nothing like sitting beside a dry lake in CA, and having a B-2 fly by below you, with a T-38 in trail so the exercise control AWACS can see where the B-2 is on radar, as it sneaks around a mountain range to enter the exercise area. Or laying back on a camo net, and watching A-4s and F-14s in knifefight ACM 10,000' up above you, over the range at Chocolate Mountains. Ask me how I know.)

The results of both schools were the two day air blitz in Desert Storm, which took out Saddam's air force in hours, mostly on the ground, and chased what survived into hiding into Syria. Repeated in about an hour in 2002. Our training resembles bloodless wars, and our wars look like training with live rounds and warshot missiles. And nobody else can touch us, except when they get lucky and volley a dozen SAMs at an unwary patrol flight. (At least, until we started fielding carriers that can't catapult any airplanes, airplanes that can't perform, and handing out wings on the basis of possessed genitalia rather than meeting performance standards.)

None of which was covered in Top Gun, because boring, plus beefcake beach volleyball, and doinking the imaginary female instructress. (Who is now a thrice-divorced 240-pound lesbian cat lady living in North Carolina, not coming back for this TopGun adventure AFAIK, and thus she and the audience will be spared the embarrassment that was Carrie Fisher's Cryptkeeper reveal in The Farce Awakens.) In fact, nearly everyone in the TopGun: Maverick sequel is new, for pretty much that same reason, except Tom Cruise, who apparently has a picture of a haggard, raggedy old 57 y.o. man in his attic, to explain why he still looks fighter-ready in this follow-up, almost alone amongst his prior co-stars.

And in the trailer for it, we have an equally ancient-looking Ed Harris, looking old enough to have flown Mercury space missions in the 1960s, asking Captain Maverick why he isn't a "two-star admiral", which he opines should be the case, looking at a calendar. Which gets me to why anyone who spent three minutes in the military hates Hollywood with undisguised contempt, because they can't even get the easy stuff right, but instead fuck up by the numbers, because they don't care, neither about either the military, nor the audience.

Firstly, If "Maverick" were a Lieutenant in 1986, that would bespeak three years or more of commissioned service. So will make him a grad of OCS, NROTC, or the Naval Academy in the Class of '83 (and possibly even '82 or '81). So let's look at where he'd be now.
1983-1993-2003-2013-2120. Thirty seven years into his naval career. He would have made captain 20ish years along. By twenty-five years, he should have been promoted. (We'll get to what he should have been promoted to in a minute.) By thirty-seven years, he would have been passed over for promotion twice (actually, more like ten times), but he wouldn't have made even the third bite at that apple: he'd have been selected for retirement, shitcanned, and playing golf on weekends, working for some defense contractor, and living next to the golf course near some Navy base, since his 30-year mark. (Or, perhaps, either a rogue CIA operative, or a former military enigma solving crimes in the Mystery Machine.) That would have been in 2013, if you're keeping score at home. So much for that screen moment. Maverick would look like Tom "Iceman" Kazansky did a couple of years ago: way too fat to even fit into a cockpit. But rumor has it they're going to drag him back too, (someone's trainer earned a bonus) even though as an admiral, he'd be retired by now too. And would have stopped flying Navy aircraft back around 2010 or so, max. Strike Two.

Then there's Ed Harris' line: "A two-star admiral". This (like, I suspect, the entire movie, beginning to end) is just criminally stupid and lazy screenwriting, by people with no fucking clue, and who don't care that they have no fucking clue.

The Navy doesn't have "two-star admirals". Nor would any one of them so refer to it.
They have Rear Admirals. Which hearkens back to sailing days, when the senior full Admiral commanded the main body, the Vice-Admiral, his deputy, commanded the front group in a line of battle, and the junior admiral commanded the group bringing up the Rear.
Hence, Rear Admiral.
QED

Navy ranks in modern times mirror the ranks of the other services, so a Rear Admiral corresponds to the rank of Major (two-star, for all you non-service types) General, who usually commands a division (or equivalent) in ground services. A one-star general is a Brigadier General. Briefly, in the 1980s, the Navy resurrected the rank of Commodore to correspond to Brigadier General. But the Navy PTB decided that it was wrong for the junior not-yet-admirals to have a cooler-sounding rank than them, and one that sufficed all the way back to the time of Commodore Perry, and the not-yet-admirals, not satisfied with martial common sense in naming conventions, nor wishing to be confused with an R&B group, thirsted for the cachét of being called admirals, even though they hadn't earned it, so they combined all Commodores and Rear Admirals, got rid of the rank term of Commodore, calling them all Rear Admirals (not "two-star" admirals), and distinguished them parenthetically as Rear Admiral (lower half) for the former Commodores, and Rear Admiral (upper half) for those actual admirals of the higher rank. Thus a Brigadier General of any of the sister services may salute a nominal Rear Admiral in the Pentagon, only later to find out the poser is (lower half) and the Brigadier outranks him substantially by time in grade. This, of course, makes the Navy laugh, and pisses off the other three services, which was at least half of why they did this.

That's why no one in the Navy would ever say the phrase "two-star admiral", but rather "Rear Admiral". I was never in the Navy, only a guest prisoner on a few of their ships, and even *I* know this. Twenty-nothing jackass screenwriters couldn't be bothered. This is why they're Fucktards, twelve times out of ten.

Which, in a two-minute trailer, tells me the sequel will be every bit as lousy and loose with reality as the original pic, hearkening back to the days when actors and extras regularly appeared onscreen with their ribbon bars upside down, and troops had haircuts that looked like opening acts for a heavy metal concert, rather than a military haircut, and were generally ten years older and forty pounds heavier than guys actually in and serving in the ranks portrayed.

There's also a model for doing a military movie absolutely right: Blackhawk Down.
By...Ridley Scott.

If you want an expert fisking of the whole trailer, POOF!, you get your wish:

Foxtrot Alpha: Here are all the screw-ups in the Maverick trailer.

Sadly, original Top Gun director Tony Scott decided one day a few years back to drive up to the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro-Long Beach midday, step up to the rail, and leap off. It was a one-way trip. I worked with him (I being very much the underling there) on various projects in my time in Hollywood, and saw him many times at close hand, and while he was director-weird (i.e. creative, but no weirder than anyone else in Hollywood), he, like his brother Ridley, knew his cinematic stuff, so the fact he isn't around anymore, let alone not helming the sequel, is a genuine loss to the industry, and the arts.


That said, Tom Cruise is one of the few consistent box-office draws from Taps to yesterday, which is no mean achievement in an industry that eats lesser lights for breakfast and burps them out, and he puts out some damned fine flicks, especially lately. The fans at ComicCon, where he surprise debuted the trailer, went wild for it, and him. And the original, wrong as it was, was watchable, and notably pro-American, even made by an expat Brit commercial director.

Knowing ahead of time that it will be cotton candy, and inaccurate as hell, I'll still probably go see it anyways. Odds are it will entertain, and be some miles ahead of 95% of the dreck coming out of Tinseltown this year or next, combined. All that, plus carrier launches? Actual USN Top Gun 2020 version? Dogfights? F-18s on 'burner? Oh, and Jennifer Connelly?


I'm there.


HELL yeah.


38 comments:

Pat H. said...

One, I saw the 1986 TG with my WW2, P-38 flying father who passed just two years later. He had flown F-86s in the NC Air National Guard prior to hanging up his flight suit for good in late 1957. He was impressed by the raw power of the F-14, but not much else in the movie.

Two, Tom Cruise owns and regularly flies a P-51 Mustang so is more than somewhat familiar with what flying single seat aircraft is all about. Don't know if he's invested in a jet trainer, which are routinely sold for just under $500k in refurbished condition with leather upholstery.

McChuck said...

Danger zone!
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/3a/4e/64/3a4e64de06d7f667389792ea340480b3.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyAn3fSs8_A

Jess said...

Thanks. I had the feeling "Maverick" was another melodrama not worth spending money to watch.

Aesop said...

@Jess,

Did you miss my last paragraph?

I wouldn't spend full-boat Friday night prices on it (midday matinee early bird price, yes), and it won't be Shakespeare, but it'll be entertaining.
Just not military-spec reality, in any sense.

300 was fun too, but not a documentary.
Just know what you're buying when you watch.
True in all cinematic cases.

Anonymous said...

Hollywood hasn't made a decent movie in decades, probably around the time they came up with the idea of a "sequel".
Some are entertaining in a mindless sort of way, thanks to CGI etc. But, the plots and story lines are so far removed from reality it's not even a good faith stretch of the imagination anymore.

John said...

Ahhhh! Jennifer Connelly. That is all.

June J said...

I will wait until reviews of the movie are out before committing to seeing it. If the movie is produced as entertainment, not leftist political junk, then I would probably see it.

The inaccuracies in movies are just part of suspending belief in reality long enough to be entertained for a couple of hours....unless you start pushing an agenda on me.

Borepatch said...

Lots of scuttlebutt that Cruise went full frontal Respect Mah Autharitah when on the carrier:

https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2019/02/top-gun-2-does-military-hate-hollywood.html

Not to mention that he's a whiny little bitch:

https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2015/03/tom-cruise-is-whiny-little-bitch.html

Not a fan. Saw the original on the big screen, doubt I'll have the stomach to put up with him this time around. His personality really gets in the way of my ability to willingly suspend my disbelief.

Barry Jones said...

IN the for what is worth category, the current system of "Upper Half/Lower Half" Rear Admirals is as it was prior to the 1980s resurrection of Commodore. Commodore was motivated by the other services who didn't like that their O-7s had to salute the Navy O-7s that were wearing 2 stars (Both Upper Half and Lower Half Rear Admirals sports 2 as the rank of Commodore still existed primarily for wartime use of Senior Captains (O-6) commanding a division or squadron of ships or simply to make him senior to other O-6s - Arleigh Burke was frocked to Commodore while serving as Chief of Staff to ADM Mitscher in WWII for example)

Anonymous said...

Nice Dorian Gray pull.

Anonymous said...

Better Col. Boyd pull. Charlie's comment of "bleeding energy below 4000 feet" could have only come from Col Boyd's EM Theory. Entropy dude, it's everywhere.

Spin

Aesop said...

@Borepatch,

I suspect total B.S. on that "scuttlebutt."
Both the source, and the particulars.
People who are dicks in Hollywood (I can give you a pretty good list, off the top of my head, after 20 years inside) have a rep that precedes them, because somebody has always worked with everybody.
Six Degrees of Bacon is even easier inside The Biz. It's a very small world.

Secondly, it's precisely 180° out of character with every description ever read about anyone who has worked with Cruise.

Also, and everyone knows this without being told, his "Authoritah", on-set, extends to zero naval crew members on a functional aircraft carrier, and even Cruise would have been told in no uncertain terms by the lowest crew member how and where to attempt self-fornication at any such incident, and such would be backed up by the POs, CPOs, and officers of the ship. Cruise is a visitor, whereas they all have to lead Seamen Skippy for the next 6 months, every day, long after the Hollywood supercargo have departed.

The skipper, for one, would have thrown the entire fucking movie off the ship, adrift on a rowboat, if cinematic operations interfered with the function of the ship even to so minor a degree. In fact, Cruise, the director, the 1st A.D., and the line producer would have received an epic ass-chewing that would have raised paint blisters on the bulkheads for trying that sort of horseshit even once, and left Maverick's former cinematic C.O., James Tolkan, (88 years young right now) in total shock and awe.

Not to mention that by simply slamming hatches mid-scene, the crew could have sabotaged the entire production. And getting poncey stars, let alone lippy and uppity ones, to puke in thweir helmets is a standard check-ride stunt for most fighter pilots. This is why cast and crews tend to be uber-respectful of such hard-to-get locations, and gracious to a fault when aboard.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that experience going back to 1940 says it's a gajillion:one odds that it ever went down like that.

So I give that lone report 0 credibility, and 0 reliability.
It sounds more like some anti-Scientology sour grapes b.s. than anything that actually happened IRL.


If you (or anyone else) don't like Cruise per se, that's your business.
For most of the MI flicks (the less said about MI:II, the better), he's kicked ass, ditto both Jack Reacher flicks, and Collateral.
But if he doesn't float someone's boat, that's a strawberry/vanilla discussion, and everyone is entitled to their own taste.

Shawshank Redemption was one of the greatest films in Hollywood history to date, and that coming from someone who thinks Tim Robbins should be cock-punched for his off-screen politics, but my brother cares more about off-screen than on it, so the only way I could get him to see that epic flick would be to sedate him, and glue his eyelids open for when he wakes up, because it I just chained him in a steel chair and played it, he'd chew his arms off to get loose, because he can't stand Robbins. Yet he watches Top Gun without a peep, so I don't have the heart to rub "Merlin" in his face every time he pops onscreen.

Go figure.

@Barry

Yes, all true, but.
No one serving, let alone in the Navy, refers to any admirals as "two-star".
Generals, yes; Admirals, no.
It's not only a faux pas, but would be akin to calling your drill sergeant "sarge". You'd be cleaning the bilge with a toothbrush and sponge.

They will use the number of stripes on sleeves and shoulder boards, but the stars are only there at all since WWII, to give Marines and the clueless services some vague clue of the eminence of the officer they've stumbled into, and hint at the fact that a Navy captain is not outranked by an Army major.

Lest they find themselves cleaning the bilge with a toothbrush and a sponge.;)

Anonymous said...

Well that was fun!
Can you do a review of the "ARMY" version?
Fire Birds with Nicholas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones
Looking forward to it

RandyGC said...

Used to love being deployed to the Nellis range. Sitting in simulated SAM sites engaging strike packages and dueling with Weasels. Watching 2 F-15's try to jump a B-52 in low level (couldn't get missile lock due to ground clutter and reflected heat from the terrain) and listening when one of the Fighter God's was reminded that BUFFs (back then) had tail guns (actually 20mm Gatling guns) and that he was the kill in that engagement.

The Navy does like their rank games. As a 2nd LT at a base with Navy students, we had decided the Naval emblem on the right side of their flight caps (where O's of every other service wears their rank) was just there to provide a splash of silver so that Ensigns would get saluted by 2nd LTs.

Course I didn't mind when I called China Lake for quarters during a conference there and did not mention the fact that I was an _AF_ Captain. ;-) (Nice bungalow. _Almost_ felt sorry for my cohorts in the Q)

RandyGC said...

Oh, and I can confirm that just about any Naval officer I ever heard comment on the movie (Aviator and Black Shoe) that Maverick would have been at least busted out of Aviation, if not the Navy.

June J said...

Next up in the rehashing of tired old ideas and actors: Terminator Dark Fate with Arnold and Linda Hamilton

Aesop said...

@Anonymous 10:46A
I saw that horrible p.o.s. freshly crapped in the theatre, and I still haven't gotten over it.

@RandyGC
Even better: one fighter @ Red Flag forgot the C-130 he was fixin' to splash was simulating an An-22, which also has a tail stinger.
The loadmaster had rigged up a pistol timing light, and before missile lock, the gun camera confirmed that the crew chief, pointing it out the tail ramp, had in fact zapped the Eagle driver, who was ruled DRT by the exercise referees.

That loadmaster probably never bought his own beers again in the E-club just on that feat.

I was also told there was a 100MPH tape F-15 silhouette temporarily affixed on the side of that C-130 for the balance of that Red Flag.

James said...

Movies for 2019,I actually enjoyed the on going (improbable) antics of John Wick and thought the flick Alita:Battle Angel was very good.That said,just streamed both on net,Hollywood has seen the last of my monies at least directly for a long time.I see a film I really like will by the dvd when inexpensive,last time/movie i did that for was The 13th Warrior in the 90's.

Anonymous said...

I was only 13 when the world first became aware of Maverick and his F 14, so I had no idea of the inaccuracies that were appearing on the big screen in front of me! Later in my life, I spent more than 10 years in uncle Sam’s Canoe club. I might only directly address flag officers by their proper titles such as rear admiral or vice admiral, but amongst conversation with my fellow shipmates, the soon to arrive visitor was referred to as “the two star” or “three star” etc... not sure what may be rattling around loosely between my ears, but the trailer got me excited for whenever I can see Tom Cruise reprise his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell !
-carolinaTURTLE

Mike said...

I met Tom Cruise once, and hung out with him for a bit, when he selected my band out of a pool of over a hundred to play the wrap party for Days Of Thunder here at the Charlotte Motor Speedway years ago. He was nothing but an exceptionally nice fellow, in circumstances where there was really no reason he had to be and, if the rumors of an inflated ego were true, wouldn't have been. Paid us good too; the most we'd made for a single gig at that early stage of our careers. Our rhythm guitarist still has the canceled personal check framed and hanging on his office wall. Robert Duvall was there too; he had invited Johnny Cash, June Carter, Jesse Coulter, and Waylong Jennings to the party as a surprise for Tom (it was also Cruise's birthday, if I remember right), and they all got onstage and sat in with us for a good, long while. News of that leaked out thanks to our having smuggled a local indie-weekly music writer in with us, eventually getting us a front-page writeup by Karen Schoemer in the NYT Sunday entertainment section. From there, we never had trouble getting gigs again--had 'em for the asking after a mention of all that, all over the country. Tom's picking us for his party pretty much made us, in other words. So yeah, the boy's all right by me, and probably always will be.

Mike said...

Oh, and yes, I DO have the pics to prove it. The aforementioned backup guitarist's wife sneaked in a camera, which had been specifically prohibited. Best part? At that time, Duvall was making a serious effort at learning the tango, and had also brought his lovely young dance instructor along (some of those verboten pics have Cruise shaking a leg on the dance floor with her). Somebody cleared the dance floor for Duvall and the young lady to provide a nice little demo, and then he got up onstage with us to sing a tune from that country music flick he was in, can't remember the name of it.

But nah, on second thought that was second best. The absolute BEST, the moment I will never ever fucking forget my whole life long, was when Johnny Cash stepped up to the stage, took my hand, and said in that rough, craggy Johnny Cash voice: "Ya sound reeeaaaal good son, just like we did forty years ago." We spoke, I invited him up with us, and then here comes ol' Waylon to humbly, almost shyly say, "Umm, uhh, I'm Waylon Jennings." By then, I was well past stroke level and edging into outright delirium from breathing all this rarified celebrity/legend air, and just said, "Well, NO SHIT." Heh. Good times, good times.

Unknownsailor said...

Speaking as retired USN, enlisted, all I would ever call a 2 star Admiral is, "Sir!'

Incidentally, I used to interact with one such 2 star Admiral, now retired 4 star Admiral Timothy Keating was the Kitty Hawk battle group commander after we went over to Japan in 1998. I worked at the Air Transportation Office for my last 2 years aboard, and I got to see him all the time when Distinguished Visitors flew on or off.

I agree about Top Gun being mostly hogwash, the radio conversations while in flight are all bogus, and some of the shots, while pretty, just aren't right.

I'll be seeing the second one, though. The trailer look pretty cool.

Anonymous said...

I was gonna make a joke about why he wouldn't be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, but it's probably been done to death by now...

Anonymous said...

I was in sonar school in San Diego in 1974 and my homie was in VF124 at Miramar. Once when he was on watch on the flight line, I got to sit in a Tomcat cockpit. The next year I was on a ship that transited east through the straights of Gibralter, the first time the F-14 entered the Med. "Away the snoopy team" about every hour. 1975 saw a lot of Tomcat action in the Med. Just my experience.

A.B. Prosper said...

I always appreciate these posts.

TGM sounds like a pass to me.

Poor use of military details for a modern military movie is unacceptable to me in the Internet age and a nearly 50 year old Jennifer Connelly is just OK nothing special just like the first one, or Iron Eagle for that matter.

OvergrownHobbit said...

Wait for the DVD release. Watch the holds-to-copies ratio at your local library. Say 20-to-one for a Big Hollywood Deal (Don't know? Call and ask) once it drops below that number by a bit, place your request.

That way you don't give one extra penny to the people who hate you. And yes, I just watched the sweet, funny, brilliantly-animated sugar pill of "White men suck: Losers. Evil. Pervs" DVD "Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse*." Why do you ask?

Save your dollars for when they screen something like Ponyo, or A Winter's Tale, or Rebel Run.THEN turn out in droves.

Meanwhile, my dad was Navy, and my bro-in-law a top gun pilot in Gulf 1. Not even on library DVD.

*Hilarious moment: They made Doc Ock a woman who was actually manipulating the dumb evil fat white Corporate oligarch, King Pin.... And sh

OvergrownHobbit said...

...and she's Jewish.

Ah, Hollywood.

gwalchmai munn said...

Rear Admirals (Lower Half), (O-7) in the US Navy wear one star and/or a single wide sleeve stripe. Therefore a BGEN would not ordinarily salute a RMDL by accident.

Aesop said...

@gwalchmai munn

That may be true now, but back in the day, Rear Admirals of both halves in service blue wore one wide stripe and one narrow one, and BGens saluting lower half RAdms junior to them happened all the time.

And it seriously chapped a lot of asses.

Papa said...

That's a cool story!
Thanks for sharing.

Papa said...

Good stuff!

Papa said...

I'll have to look up those three titles:
Pony
Rebel Run
A Winters Tale

Haven't heard of them.

Papa said...

That's cool to hear Cruise owns and pilots a P 51!

Anonymous said...

That's a thing to do when you've got money like he does(or should, if he's paid attention). Gotta say with that kinda cash the Mustang would not be alone in my "stable". Ah, to dream...
Boat Guy

Bezzle said...

"Actual USN Top Gun 2020 version? Dogfights? F-18s on 'burner? Oh, and Jennifer Connelly?"

...well, Connelly is 48 years old.

Note the cowardice of the new film in studiously refraining from the portrayal of any pre-wall-slammed female in a heterosexually-desirable light. --This is what our high-T entertainment has become now: Grecian Formula heroes who need blue trapezoids to get it up, but wouldn't dream of doing so, at least not such that they'd dare reveal in the trailer. Prediction: Cruise will flash that patented alpha-jerkboy smile of his after some line of shit-testing snark from a commanding butch, and that'll be the extent of cisgender relations.

(At least Dwayne "Hobbs" Johnson, 47, and Jason "Shaw" Statham, 51, have made the effort to guzzle enough HGH to still look good with their shirts off, thereby selling the premise of remaining eligible to continue cavorting with early-thirty-somethings AKA Vanessa Kirby. Anything younger would be child abuse, of course, and we can't have that. White men can't chase booty no more, tis the new rule.)

In any event, Tom Cruise nostalgia and catapult launch porn can carry only ten minutes of a two hour movie. It's the only 110 minutes that have me worried as to what sort of asinine plot they'll come up. (Probably some loony propaganda rot in which we team up with Putin to take on Iran.)

The Freeholder said...

I willing suspended my disbelief for the first one, and I'll do it again this time. I'm a sucker for plane porn.

Bezzle said...

Aside from the de rigueur history-mangling and fucking Danny Glover stinking up the joint like the Phantom Shitter's signature calling-card, "Flight of the Intruder" (1991) was an enjoyable romp. (That moldy old Marxist fraud Roger Ebert panned it, so it carries Red Hollywood's inverted seal-of-approval.

Sanders said...

Looks like the new Top Gun bows to China’s communist party by censoring Maverick’s jacket

https://www.businessinsider.com/top-guns-maverick-appears-changed-to-please-chinas-communist-party-2019-7