Movies can still be entertaining? Who knew?

I remember the days when going to the movies felt like a great escape.

(In fact, I’m old enough to remember a movie called “The Great Escape.”)

You’d buy your ticket, get your popcorn and walk through the doors into the near-magical darkness, a cool environment absolutely detached from day-to-day reality. For a couple of hours, you’d forget about life — and be entertained.

You might see monsters, or gangsters, or war heroes, or comedians or (if you were on a date) a mushy love story. (In fact, I even remember a movie called “Love Story.”)

Somewhere along the line, something changed. File this under “OK Boomer” if you must, but for me, the mere thought of going to the movies the past few years often felt less like fun and more like a chore.

Actually, it was worse than that. In addition to CGI-enhanced action and unfathomable plotlines involving witches and warlocks and fifth-generation takes on comic-book heroes from yesteryear, I’d all-too-often feel lectured. And look, I don’t mind that on occasion. Sometimes I need it, and lord knows I get plenty of practice at my job. But almost every time at the movies too?

Plus, it seemed too many actors and actresses were less the “movie stars” of my youth than mouthpieces who seemed to feel it was their moral duty to castigate us for what horrible human beings we had become, both onscreen and away from it (but enough about why I quit watching the Oscars 20 years ago). We were no longer the adoring public; many of us were just made to feel, well, “Unforgiven.”

(Yeah, I remember that movie too, and fondly.)

And the fact many of these movies were made by people like Harvey Weinstein, and starred people like Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin, didn’t exactly make their morally superior preaching any easier to digest.

So, partially as a result, I turned to a new direction. In a true non-Boomer moment, I actually learned how to stream things and found that staying on the couch, microwaving cheap popcorn and watching “Ozark” and “1883” were all the movie-type entertainment I needed. Theaters were practically dead and buried to me, just like “Old Yeller.” (I cried during that one.)

And then, the craziest thing happened.

After 36 years, Tom Cruise made another “Top Gun” movie.

Even crazier, he pulled it off.

My wife and I were there for opening night on the big screen at Cinemark in Chico, and from the action on the screen to the rapt attention of the sold-out audience, it was unlike any movie experience I’ve had since, well, the 20th century.

By now, you’ve either read the reviews, seen the movie or are still somewhat on the fence about it. I’m here to tell you, get off the fence. Believe the hype: Dare I say this might be bigger than a movie. It might actually be the closest our country has come to agreeing on anything for the past three presidential administrations.

“Top Gun: Maverick” is off-the-charts fantastic, a long-overdue return of Hollywood movie magic that’s managed to unite movie-goers from all across our politically divided fruited plain in agreement on something.

Full disclosure: I had serious doubts this movie would ever get made. And if they did make it, I fully expected some Hollywood half-wits to ruin it. I figured they’d insist that the plot involve at least two warlocks, one member of “The Avengers,” lots of CGI, support for the Hollywood-friendly “cause of the day” and finally, a mandate that Cruise fly only solar-powered fighter jets in the film’s climactic battle to save the planet from greedy oil barons.

(Yes, when it comes to the movies, like a lot of you, I’ve become that jaded.)

But, as Cruise Himself is my witness, I needn’t have worried.

This is a film for all the ages, with just the right amount of nostalgia mixed into a storyline that, while not completely plausible (who cares?) is all the excuse we need to see our favorite pilots go ripping through Feather River Canyon or pulling those incredible face-sucking 9G climbs, all in the name of wiping out the bad guys and their uranium while saving the planet from certain destruction — all in a day’s work.

There’s no preaching. There’s no politics, unless you consider the mere act of cheering for American pilots in a movie to be political all by itself (and if you do, shame on you. Can’t we unite on anything these days?).

Instead, it’s two hours and 15 minutes of emotion, awe-inspiring flight sequences, nostalgia, great music (Hank Williams and The Who on the same soundtrack? Sign me up!), tears (if you don’t shed a few in the scene with Val Kilmer, something’s wrong with you) and best of all, for the final 40 minutes or so, nothing but edge-of-your seat action that will, to steal a line from the original, take your breath away.

I think there’s been a long-simmering thirst in our country for something like this — a reason to unite. For something. Anybody. Anything. Just one thumb’s-up, high-five moment to remind us we do have some pretty great things in common that we can all enjoy, free from the non-stop back-and-forth dagger-in-the-political-back garbage that pretty much passes for our lives these days.

When was the last time you could say that about anything, and can you believe it took a movie sequel to do it?

You could even say Cruise has pulled off “Mission: Impossible.”

(OK, I saw that one too. But I liked the old TV show better.)