Tom Cruise

As an action movie, Top Gun: Maverick is compelling entertainment. As art, it exists more as a celebration of Tom Cruise, exalting a version of reckless masculinity and whiteness that I might have hoped we'd left behind.

Before diving fast and furious into a review of Top Gun: Maverick, I should probably provide some personal history about me and Maverick.

While Mission: Impossible—Fallout played, I loved every minute of it. But afterward, I had an itch that I couldn't scratch. I wrote this to scratch it.