As someone who grew up in the heyday of bombastic, high-concept Simpson/Bruckheimer movies, I was never going to miss Top Gun: Maverick when it finally arrived on the big screen. It traded heavily on nostalgia and in some ways it was effectively a remake of the original with a bigger budget, a slightly tighter script and more impressive cinematography. Speaking of which, the thing that really makes this film superior to the original is the aerial sequences captured inside the fighter planes. It is genuinely astonishing footage and is exactly what a trip to the movies and the big screen is all about. That said, some of the more low key scenes worked very well too and I was especially moved by the pivotal scene between Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. Having seen the magnificent documentary Val only days beforehand, I thought they incorporated Val Kilmer’s current health issues seamlessly into the film, and it ended up being my favourite scene in the film. The plot is paper thin (much like the original), the characters are cartoonish at times (shout out Jon Hamm and Ed Harris) and Christopher McQuarrie’s fingerprints are all over the Mission Impossible-esque sequence when they steal the enemy plane. But these are quibbles that fade away when you take in the whole experience, which is an enjoyable, well paced, popcorn-munching blockbuster of old.