been a while since i've written one of these haha... that .25 is a pity add-on btw. things look much worse on a ten-point scale. so basically, i only watched this movie coz i wanted to watch Top Gun Maverick and see what was so genius about that sequel. i was reading a project hail mary fic (peak movie btw) and the reader was a naval pilot so i thought hey why not. when i initially started watching this, i was just not into it and i quit around 30-ish minutes i think. but i got the motivation to finish it tonight so here are my thoughts: this movie is dated, and it's glaringly obviously that it's a product of its time. it's a predictable, clichéd film, with writing so surface level you don't even need to scratch to see it, and it reads like your typical testosterone "god bless america" engineered blockbuster. this movie also fails the bechdel so hard lmfao. two female characters with speaking roles and all they're concerned with are their respective partners. hell, one of them, the female lead, has a literal doctorate but we have none of her backstory except for her to be the pretty girl that maverick gets at the end of the movie. speaking of maverick, god what an absolutely immature arrogant manchild. he pisses me off as a main character. goose was my beloved, a great character all around, but ofc, they killed him for maverick's character development. cheap kill tbf. i still hate maverick. pete mitchell they'll never make me like you. the best and most enduring thing in this movie was the airfight against the migs in the climax. wonderful, really. i was the most locked in i'd been for the course of the film only for that scene. anyways, mid movie in general.
