Planes. They are big and fast and make loud noises and the ones used by the United States military can shoot things. This was the central conceit of Top Gun, a deeply 80s action movie about said big, fast, loud planes shooting things for your viewing pleasure and not much else. Despite a critical panning Top Gun became a mainstay in many a dad’s list of movies he would rattle off to demonstrate how far movies had fallen since his time at the theater thanks to its practical effects, bombastic action set pieces, and unashamedly ostentatious characters. Whatever its objective merits (of which I am decidedly skeptical), Top Gun proved popular enough to warrant a nod from Hollywood’s indefatigable sequel generator, and that’s how we got Top Gun Maverick, an Oscar nominated 2022 movie directed by Joseph Kosinski that was even more of a silver bullet th ...