The only change is in Cruise himself. His teeth may be as white as ever and the writers haven’t forgotten to include the obligatory scene that has him sprinting for his life as if to prove yet again that short legs,too,can break speed records. But the smile doesn’t radiate quite the degree of self-satisfaction and the look-at-me-air is blurred by a faint trace of doubt.
It’s not maturity exactly. In the opening scene,Cruise’s Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell disobeys orders and takes off on a test flight that ends in a mess,punching a large hole in the US Navy budget,but the passing years have imprinted a certain ruefulness behind the bravado. Drone technology has arrived and time is running out. An unimpressed rear admiral,played by Ed Harris,who looks as if age has pared him to the bone,does not waste words:“The future is coming,” he tells Maverick,“and you’re not in it.”
But the service still has one last job for him. He’s being sent back to his old training school to prepare an elite group of young test pilots to undertake the near-impossible. They are to destroy an enemy’s unsanctioned nuclear plant deep in a valley surrounded by mountain peaks. And Maverick has to absorb yet another punishing blow to his ego – he won’t be flying with his charges. He’s been ordered to teach,not lead.
Once again,egos feature prominently in the film’s storyline,which centres on the edgy relationship between teamwork and competitiveness. In the original,Maverick was preoccupied by his rivalry with Val Kilmer’s “Iceman” Kazansky,whose cockiness matched his own.