REVIEWED!
THE TRIUMPH
THE BEST TIME WE’VE HAD IN THE CINEMA THIS YEAR? IT CAN ONLY BE TOP GUN: MAVERICK. WE ASKED DIRECTOR JOSEPH KOSINSKI TO TAKE US ON A THRILL-RIDE THROUGH ITS WINNING FORMULA
Cruise control;
THE STAR
“HIS EXPLOITS ARE LEGENDARY.”
For all its bells and whistles and various selling points (real flying! Amazing aerial action! Lady Gaga!), Maverick’s real USP was, well, the man who is Maverick: Tom Cruise, dialling back into Pete Mitchell with minimum fuss and maximum movie-star intensity, but imbuing him with an inner sadness, a sense of a life well-lived but simultaneously wasted. Maverick’s fallibility is one of the biggest and most refreshing surprises that the most successful movie of the year — at the time of writing — has to offer.