He’s back to take your breath away

From Caroline Graham With thrilling aerial dogfights at 1,189mph, strap yourself in for the low-down on Tom Cruise’s new Top Gun sequel blockbuster

IT HAS been 36 years since the original Top Gun blasted Tom Cruise to Hollywood superstardom. Now the movie’s long-awaited sequel is set to transport a new generation of fans into the ‘danger zone’. Top Gun: Maverick, which has critics raving, will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joining the 59-year-old actor on the red carpet in London the following day for a UK Royal premiere.

While sequels rarely live up to the hype, those who have seen this $200 million blockbuster predict it will dominate the box office this summer and could even snag a Best Picture Oscar.

A producer who saw the film in LA last week said: ‘It’s the perfect summer movie and the best sequel since The Godfather Part II. Everyone was worried the hype couldn’t possibly match the movie, but this is a great film.

‘It has everything you want from a Hollywood blockbuster and Tom Cruise is magnificent. He’s nearly 60 but this is his movie. He proves why he’s been a superstar for so long.’

The film, which opens across the UK on May 27, tells the story of the US Navy’s elite ‘Top Gun’ fighter training school.

It introduces favourites from the original film, such as Val Kilmer’s Iceman, to a new batch of flying aces, which include black and Hispanic Top Guns – and a female pilot.

‘It’s just a fantastic thrill ride from the start,’ the source said. ‘It has everything from the most spectacular aerial dog-fight scenes to moments so heartbreaking you could hear people sobbing. It’s one of those films where you immediately want to go back in and watch it again.’

Hollywood pundits predict the movie could make $1billion globally in its opening weekend and may go on to challenge Avatar as the most successful movie ever.

‘It is so good everyone expects it to win a ton of Oscars next year,’ the source said.

‘It’s bound to win all the technical awards because the aerial fight scenes are incredible but it should get nominated for Best Picture, it’s that good.’

Here’s all you need to know about the film which – as Top Gun’s original theme tune promised – will take your breath away…

who have complained that Cruise is setting a bad example by riding the superbike without a helmet.

...AND SO IS THE FASHION

TOP GUN spurred a run on leather flying jackets, while there was a 40 per cent increase in sales of Ray-Ban aviators. This time, fashionistas are already gearing up to dress like their heroes.

There is an official Top Gun store offering $249 (£203) flying jackets and $24.50 (£20) men’s sport underwear emblazoned with the Top Gun logo, as well as branded belts, a cologne, socks, coffee mugs and face masks.

HOW CRUISE WENT GAGA FOR GAGA

CRUISE, who was in charge of picking the film’s music, was determined to repeat the success of Top Gun’s global hits Take My Breath Away and Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins. He commissioned multiple groups and writers but then dumped them all after seeing Lady Gaga in concert. Oscar-winning Gaga said that her emotional ballad Hold My Hand is ‘a love letter to the world during and after a very hard time’.

CRITICS ARE THRILLED

SO FAR there hasn’t been a negative word to be heard, an astonishing feat when it comes to film critics.

The San Francisco Chronicle raved: ‘Top Gun: Maverick improves on the original. It’s deeper, it’s not corny and it has a thrilling effect.’

David Ehrlich of IndieWire said: ‘If Top Gun was a fun film because it invented Tom Cruise, Maverick is a great film because it immortalises him.’

Hollywood ‘Bible’ Variety said that the film ‘takes to the skies as no blockbuster has before’.

It’s not just Cruise who’s eulogised. The LA Times said of Val Kilmer: ‘In one fictional moment, he gives us something unmistakably, irreducibly real, partly by puncturing the fantasy of human invincibility that his co-star has never stopped trying to sell.’

BUT WILL IT SAVE HOLLYWOOD?

ONLY Marvel superhero movies have succeeded in a post-Covid world – and Hollywood is desperately hoping this film proves that audiences still want to see blockbuster movies on big screens. An executive for Disney Studios said: ‘Steven Spielberg’s

West Side Story remake didn’t produce like it was supposed to. Everyone is banking on Top Gun: Maverick. If this one doesn’t take off, Hollywood as we know it is finished.’