opening night
new movies this week
TOP GUN: MAVERICK ★★★
PG-13, 131 minutes. Starts tonight at Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon, Madison. Starts Friday at Niantic.
“If you think, you’re dead.” That’s one of Tom Cruise’s more memorable lines from “Top Gun,” a cautionary reminder that when your engine flames out or an enemy pilot locks you in their sights, hesitation means death. Inadvertently, the line also suggests the best way to enjoy Tony Scott’s immortal 1986 blockbuster: Best not to think too long or hard about the dumb plot, the threadbare romance, the fetishization of U.S. military might or the de rigueur plausibility issues. The key is to succumb, like Cruise’s high-flying Maverick himself, to a world of unchecked instinct and pure sensation, to savor the movie’s symphony of screaming jets and booming Giorgio Moroder, not to mention all those lovingly photographed torsos and tightywhities. Jets still scream and muscles still gleam in the ridiculous and often ridiculously entertaining “Top Gun: Maverick,” though in several respects, the movie evinces — and rewards — an unusual investment of brainpower. I’d go further and say that it offers its own decisive reversal of Maverick’s dubious logic: It has plenty on its mind, and it’s gloriously alive. Rather than let bygones be bygones, the director Joseph Kosinski and a trio of screenwriters (Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Cruise’s favorite auteur-wingman, Christopher McQuarrie) have resurrected threads of rivalry, tragedy and triumph from the original and spun them into uncharted realms of male-weepie grandiosity. Some of this continuity is a matter of basic story sense, rooted in a shrewd understanding of franchise mechanics and an equally savvy appeal to 1980s nostalgia. But it also has something to do with the 59-year-old Cruise’s close stewardship of his own superhuman image, a commitment that speaks to his talent as well as his monomania. Few Cruise characters have felt as aligned with that monomania as Maverick. From the moment he entered the frame in 1986, sporting flippant aviator shades and riding a Kawasaki motorcycle, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell announced himself as a signature Cruise creation. These days, the need for speed still persists for both Cruise and Maverick. Called back to the elite Navy training school where he flew planes, defied orders and irritated his peers with distinction, Maverick is charged with preparing the program’s best and brightest for a stealth attack on a uranium enrichment plant owned by some conveniently unidentified NATO-threatening entity. Those best and brightest include Rooster (Miles Teller), whose candidacy is complicated by the fact that his late father was Maverick’s wingman and best friend, Goose.
— Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
THE BOB’S BURGERS MOVIE ★★★
PG-13, 102 minutes. Starts tonight at Waterford, Stonington, Lisbon. Starts Friday at Niantic, Westbrook.
Fans of “Bob’s Burgers” will find a lot to savor in the long-awaited big screen adaptation of the Fox comedy about the oddball Belcher family. “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” feels very much like the quirky show — just on a supersized scale, which is all it needed to be. It’s almost summertime in this unnamed place that feels like any number of browbeaten beach towns on the New Jersey coast. For the Belcher kids, that means endless possibilities. The oldest daughter Tina (Dan Mintz) is dreaming about summer boyfriends. Gene (Eugene Mirman) is getting a band together (his instrument is a napkin holder and spoons held together by a few rubber bands) and hoping for a big gig at the nearby boardwalk. And Louise (Kristen Schaal) is trying to prove to her classmates (and herself) that despite her hot pink bunny eared hat, she is NOT a baby. Their parents, meanwhile, have more dire concerns: The bank is threatening to repossess their kitchen equipment if they don’t pay back a loan. Bob’s (H. Jon Benjamin) bribery burger (which he made special for the bank employee with an extra egg and everything) doesn’t work. And he and his wife Linda (John Roberts) have to scramble to make a payment in two weeks. Their cartoonishly wealthy and eccentric landlord Calvin Fischoeder (an ever delightful Kevin Kline) says he might consider waving rent for a month as he speeds away on a golf cart chugging champagne with his brother Felix (Zach Galifianakis) and lawyer cousin Courtney (David Wain). But matters are complicated further thanks to a massive sinkhole that opened in front of the burger joint, leaving the only way in through the gross alley. Naturally the finances of the burger joint are not among the kids’ highest priorities, especially when the remains of a long dead body turn up and they decide to skip school and help solve the murder of the boardwalk employee Cotton Candy Dan. “The Bob’s Burgers Movie” feels very easy and lived in. — Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press