Back on the bike;
“THANK YOU, ICE, FOR EVERYTHING.”
Outside of the Maverick/Rooster dynamic, and the rather lovely, if slightly undercooked, relationship with Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) that sees Maverick finally confront his wandering ways, the film’s unexpected emotional core comes from a scene that throws Maverick back together with his wingman of old, Val Kilmer’s Iceman. Now an admiral who’s been protecting Maverick from up on high, their scene is notable because of what isn’t said between the two men — largely because Iceman, dying from cancer, doesn’t talk at first, choosing instead to type on a keyboard.