The original Top Gun, for all its 80s cheese, holds a very special place in my heart because it was perhaps the first time a movie inspired awe in me. As was the case for many who saw it back then, it inspired my enthusiasm for military aviation, embodied by the F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, and set the standard for the kind of bold, muscular Hollywood spectacles that bring people out to the cinema on the weekend. Over 30 years later, Top Gun: Maverick has landed in a cinematic landscape awash with superhero fakery, vomitous CGI, and narrative blandness, and in a death-defying act of filmic acrobatics, launched 2020s movie standards into the stratosphere.

The level of filmmaking in Maverick is so beyond anything that’s ever been seen before that it’s hard to put into words. Filming an action movie with 2020s standards revolving around arguably the fastest vehicles in the world, fighter jets, is an impossible task for almost any movie studio to pull off realistically. It’s incredibly dangerous, training actors to be fighter pilots is a tall order, and the logistics of accessing United States military jets and aircraft carriers is a nightmare. Just about no one can pull this together…unless, of course, you have Tom Cruise on your side. With the release of Maverick, it’s safe to say that the man is singlehandedly carrying the torch for good-old-fashioned, highly entertaining blockbusters that are not superhero movies. He is a certified pilot for a variety of aircraft. He does his own stunts, including those that take place in aircraft. He is very likeable, despite the Scientology stuff. He is also hugely invested in any movie he makes and carries the kind of star power that few actors today possess; the kind that, paired with a producer like Jerry Bruckheimer, can get the US Navy to loan you their F-18 jets and aircraft carrier. Cruise’s signature branding as a bona fide movie star manifests itself in every movie he makes with varying degrees, most prominently in the recent Mission Impossible entries, but here it is firing on all cylinders well beyond anything seen in his entire career.

The amount of thought and work that has gone into crafting a bar-setting blockbuster that embarrasses everything that has come before is obvious. The aerial scenes are astonishingly well done, with an abundance of in-cockpit shots that show both the strain in the pilots’ faces as they are pummeled by G-forces and the landscape outside rushing past them. One clever thing the movie does to keep you glued to the action is that Maverick’s training regime for his students revolves entirely around a specific “Death Star Trench Run”, if you will, in which they must fly within a treacherously narrow path before climbing over a canyon, bombing a target, and then flying out of it while being subject to G-forces so powerful that even their own planes can barely withstand them. All of it taking place low to the ground so that the cinematography really captures the speed these planes are flying at. Each section of this flight path challenges a different skill: reflexes (flying through the trench), accuracy (bombing the target), and endurance (flying out of the canyon). This distinct pattern is drilled repeatedly into both the pilots and audience, making the flight sequences progressively easier to follow. When the actual mission takes place, Maverick succeeds at putting you on edge; you know exactly what the pilots need to do and how insane the odds are stacked against their survival. The story does a great job at making you feel like none of the characters, even Maverick himself, have plot armor, thanks to effective characterization that demonstrates their humanity and flaws despite being the best of the best. It’s the perfect combination of ingredients for one of the finest final acts of any big-budget movie I’ve ever seen.

Speaking of characterization, Tom Cruise’s portrayal of a wiser but no less dangerous Maverick is among his best performances. Age and the burden of his best friend Goose’s death have blunted his wild “I feel the need for speed!” persona. He has made it a personal mission of his to ensure that Goose’s son, Rooster, does not suffer his father’s fate, even if it means stymying the young man’s career. With this vulnerability and the fact that he’s despised by the top brass and (initially) disregarded by the current generation of top guns, Maverick starts the movie off as surprisingly vulnerable and a bit of an underdog. His heart-to-heart with Iceman (Val Kilmer) also ranks as one of the most emotional moments you’ll ever see Tom Cruise in. All this serves to make you root for him when he finally gets into the cockpit of an F-18 and silences everyone with his immense skill. Maverick is a testament to the distinctly American concept that an individual of immeasurable ability (and often one who breaks the rules and pisses everyone off) is what truly inspires the best in others. The tension between him and Rooster (who blames Maverick for both his father’s death and his own career troubles) serves as the movie’s dramatic heart, and when Maverick’s protectiveness over Rooster grows, it’s hard not to get the sense that he will sacrifice his life to protect his best friend’s son.

After a decade of beloved film franchises killing off their heroes (Star Wars, 007, Terminator), I was worried that Top Gun: Maverick would follow the same route as the tear-inducing buildup to the climactic mission began. Instead, it gave me what I truly wanted to see, but never imagined I would actually see in a movie today: a rousing finale in which Maverick and Rooster pilot an F-14 Tomcat and do battle with a pair of 5th generation Russian Sukhois. Just a few months ago I had visited the USS Midway in San Diego and laid hands on an actual F-14, even sitting inside the cockpit. To see this iconic jet that was a big part of my childhood on the big screen after over a quarter of a century felt like spiritual euphoria. Of all the cleverly engineered crowd-pleasing moments in all the blockbusters I’ve seen, this has to rank at the very top, and it was strangely refreshing to experience it in a theater chock-full of people.

Once the credits rolled, I realized what Top Gun: Maverick really is: a joy-inspiring movie for people who have grown increasingly weary of today’s movies. It does not need to get too clever with the plot because it doesn’t have to; its wholesome characters, unprecedented action and big heart do not call for subversive plot devices. There are certainly movies where that sort of thing works well; Maverick is an uncommon example of one where it wouldn’t. It’s the kind of movie that you can watch with just about anyone. It’s the kind of movie that will inspire awe in new generations of filmgoers while joining 2020’s Tenet and 2021’s Dune to form a trio of COVID-era movies that will help preserve the value of the cinematic experience.