Among some of the most nauseatingly sleep-inducing 1980's flicks that I can think of, "Top Gun" might indeed take the cake and top honors. It is the one that is on par with the very popular "Dirty Dancing" as bland, superficial cinema with nothing to chew on, or even lick your lips over. There is no residue, only an empty void where you struggle to remember anything of value in a sea of Dolby-ized noise.
"Top Gun" is remembered as the most jingoistic Navy recruitment film of the 1980's, reminding one of the propaganda war flicks of the 1940's except with better aerial footage. I say remembered because it is a film that I had no actual recollection of seeing. I did not see it in a theater but a friend of mine back then told me that we watched it on videocassette. I was flabbergasted by his comment at the time - we saw this movie that I had no interest in seeing? I had no memory of this and, for the record, I remember seeing David Lynch's "Dune" in theaters only because of Sting's electrifying performance and the fact that we pelted the screen with sticky, buttery popcorn (oh, what fun to be such callow teenagers). Then it hit me, "Top Gun" was just a bore, a movie about nothing and usually movies about nothing are forgotten and evaporate from the mind after one finishes watching them. Yet I saw "Dirty Dancing" on video and I must say, that movie at least had a killer oldies soundtrack (which I still have on cassette) and the famous moment where Jennifer Grey...well, you know it. Yet I hated that movie passionately because it was a stupid, unbelievable love story about a dance instructor prick played by the late Patrick Swayze who teaches Grey how to dance. At least "Dirty Dancing" had the courage of its bad movie convictions, if that makes any sense.
I don't hate "Top Gun" - I just find it unmemorable and sleep-inducing. I have tried to watch it more than once back in the 1980's and it did nothing for me. The aerial footage of defense planes racing and swooshing through the air in formation is well-done and perfectly executed...but so what? Tom Cruise is Lt. Maverick, a wild, reckless pilot who "feels the need for speed!" Oh, brother, someone shoot me. Val Kilmer is another crazy, unpredictable pilot named the "Iceman" and they both vow to one-up and challenge each other to see who really feels the need for faster speed on board an F-14. Or something like that. I am aware that a sexual relationship occurs between Maverick and his flight instructor (Kelly McGillis) who appears to be too intelligent and wise to put up with a hothead like Maverick. Ah, and who can forget the Berlin song "Take My Breath Away," which is not a bad song but it deserved to be in a better movie. You can keep the Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone."
Other than that, I have nothing else to say about "Top Gun." In terms of Tom Cruise's bad movie meter, "Cocktail" is a far more thunderous assault on the senses of good taste but that is like comparing one rotten apple versus another rotten apple with no core. Apparently people have been waiting 35 years for a sequel to "Top Gun." I don't recall anyone back in 1986 clamoring for another chapter in the nonsensical adventures of Maverick yet, here we are and a new movie called "Top Gun: Maverick" is in the wings and about to be released in theaters after several delays due to COVID. Quentin Tarantino's take on an alleged gay subtext in "Top Gun" as relayed in one scene in the otherwise forgettable "Sleep With Me" is far more invigorating than any one frame of "Top Gun." "Top Gun" just doesn't take my breath away.
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