Top Gun (4k Ultra HD + Blu-Ray)

“Leading a phenomenal cast including Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins, Tom Cruise soars as Maverick, the young, in-your-face U.S. fighter pilot with a need for speed, a lot to prove, and even more to learn. Forever ranking with the best action films of all time, Top Gun remains a high-octane adrenaline rush.”

Top Gun opens above the Pacific as Maverick and his navigator Goose (Anthony Edwards) encounter MiG fighters they’ve never seen before. After some questionable maneuvers Maverick is able to get a missile lock on them, causing them to disengage and retreat, but not before one of them spooks Cougar (John Stockwell), another pilot who has frozen up and won’t respond. Desperately low on fuel, Maverick ignores orders to land and talks Cougar back down to the aircraft carrier and promptly resigns from service. Maverick and Goose are now given the chance to go to Top Gun, an elite flight school for fighter pilots in which Maverick must compete to be the best.

Everyone has seen Top Gun, haven’t they? I can’t count how many times I have, it’s a classic 80’s action film, young Tom Cruise, Tony Scott just getting into his groove with his iconic style, and tons of testosterone. Then, why for the life of me, could I not even remember what the film was about? Sure, it’s got fighter jets going really fast, Tom Cruise falling in love with a teacher, sweaty volleyball, and the whole Goose thing, but I couldn’t even recall a story behind all of this. That’s because there really isn’t much of one, and if Top Gun is one thing, it’s just how different this decade began treating films like music videos to cater to the MTV generation.

The lack of story really does fail to engage the audience the more and more I see the film. Is Val Kilmer supposed to be the antagonist? The MiGs that show up in the last five minutes of the film? It’s really not clear at all, and with that there aren’t many opportunities for Maverick to grow as a character, and he needs it. They somehow make it work with a freak accident being the catalyst that puts Maverick on the right path, but there really isn’t a story to latch on to and invest in, just the music video scenes of Kenny Loggins to look forward to as this very formulaic film continues to unfold.

At this point in his career, Tom Cruise was still relatively new to Hollywood. He had done Risky Business, and just finished Legend with Tony’s brother Ridley Scott. From this point on, he was in high demand with some of the great dramatic roles of his career before he went pure action star. In Top Gun, Cruise finds his stride as an action-star actor, playing the role very well as the unpredictable braggart who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. In the middle of all of that though, you clearly see why Tom Cruise is such an incredible actor, the emotion he brings to the role, not only for the love story with Kelly McGillis, but also involving the tragedy that befalls him that doesn’t make him want to fly. For being such a plain film story-wise, his character does have some great depth to it, especially involving his father who mysteriously died in combat in a classified mission he isn’t told about, trying to prove himself to his dead father every time he gets to the skies.

I don’t think Top Gun would have been the success it was nor remembered like it has been if it weren’t for the direction of Tony Scott. Fairly new to the game himself, Scott’s unique action-oriented style with quick cuts and heavy music would go on to be much more pronounced than here, but still adds to the appeal of the film from what audiences were in to at the time. It was basically a music video, as I’ve said, and that’s what the 80’s was all about. Scott is able to capture that die-hard pro-America intensity with a momentum that doesn’t stop the entire film.

Video

Top Gun is presented in 4k 2160p Ultra High Definition Widescreen 2.40:1 featuring Dolby Vision. This brand new transfer looks incredible, with the Dolby Vision’s meta-data ensuring every sequence is calibrated to looking its best. The 4k also provides the film with those brilliant brights, deep darks and rich, vibrant, life-like color. Grain is pretty heavy in some parts of the film, mostly confined to the opening shots that look mostly like stock footage of fighter jets and aircraft carriers. The picture is very clear and detailed, and one thing I don’t think I ever noticed before until this new 4k transfer is just how sweaty everyone is all the time. It isn’t just in the volleyball scene, its guys sitting at their stations in a boat, guys in flight-class, everyone but Kelly McGillis is sweating like crazy. But, that’s the detail you can expect from this new transfer.

Audio

The audio is presented in Dolby Atmos, another one of the highlights of this set. Being basically a music video, the score sounds incredible, the perfect accompaniment and probably one of the most well-known scores of an action film. The sounds of the jets overhead is what I thought made this track really shine, especially during the flyby sequences in which the jet tears through your surrounds. Levels are good between them and the center channel, with no defects noted.

Special Features

This set features some new extras, mostly trying to build excitement for the sequel.

These include:

• The Legacy of Top Gun
• On Your Six – Thirty Years of Top Gun
  • Looking Back
  • America’s Best
  • Into the Danger Zone
  • Going Ballistic
  • Narrow Targets and the Future
• Commentary by Filmmakers and Naval Experts
• Danger Zone: The Making of Top Gun (6-Part Documentary)
• Tom Cruise Interviews
• Multi-Angle Storyboards
• Best of the Best: Inside the Real Top Gun
• Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
• Survival Training Featurette
• Music Videos
• TV Spots

Top Gun will always be a staple of the 80’s, a staple of action films, a feel-good patriotic film that satisfies the thrill seekers in us all and instills a sense of camaraderie. This 4k presentation offers audiences the chance to see and hear it like they never have before, and in anticipation for the sequel I recommend checking it out.