The Real Deal

Dinosaurs, spaceships, superheroes, tornadoes… When everything in movies can be realistically computer generated, how can you still impress audiences?

Very simple. By shooting the action for real.

Which is exactly what the makers of the new Top Gun movie did. Tom Cruise only wanted to make the sequel if they would film the actors inside the cockpits of actually flying fighter jets. And no CGI planes, only real shots of real F-18s.

I saw Top Gun: Maverick last night and it blew me away. Hands down, it’s the movie of the year, surpassing The Batman, which was already fantastic.

The original Top Gun has never been one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies at all. I’m more of a Mission: Impossible kind a guy. So when I heard they were making a sequel to the 1986 movie, I was less than thrilled. Why another Top Gun movie, more than 30 years later? It sounded like a cash-in to me.

But then the movie came out and I heard the buzz. Raving reviews and Tom Cruise’s biggest box office hit in his career? Maybe I had to see this movie after all.

So last night I got the chance to see it on IMAX, the way the makers intended. And boy was it good. It might be the best movie experience since I saw Avengers: Endgame.

And that says a lot, because I’m a huge superhero movie fan. I’m actually a sucker for big CGI blockbusters. Because CGI and greenscreen have finally made it possible for superhero stories to be told effectively on the big screen. The movies that Marvel and DC have put out in the last 15 years are what I dreamed of as a kid.

But when it comes to stories that take place in the real world, nothing beats practical effects. Tom Cruise knows this. It’s why he jumps off buildings and out of airplanes for real. And why this time, he asked the same commitment of his fellow actors. The dedication of the actors and the rest of the crew to making the movie as realistic as possible show in the final result.

They are are the Real Deal.