In the kingdom of sequels, Tom Cruise now reigns supreme.

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'Top Gun' is the iconic 1980s film, the Oscar-winning song 'Take My Breath Away' written by Giorgio Moroder and performed by Berlin, it's Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer and it's, of course, the feature film that propelled Tom Cruise into the Hollywood stratosphere.

'Top Gun' is the iconic 1980s film, the Oscar-winning song 'Take My Breath Away' written by Giorgio Moroder and performed by Berlin, it's Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer and it's, of course, the feature film that propelled Tom Cruise into the Hollywood stratosphere.

Cleverly thought out, scripted and visualized, “Top Gun: Maverick” cleverly blends nostalgia, jaw-dropping aerial stunts – and the suspense that goes with it – and likable tales of love and rivalry.

Nostalgia is assumed and assured from the first images. Old photos of Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Carole (Meg Ryan), motorcycle, leather jacket, notes from the theme music, etc. No doubt, Tom Cruise, the producer, actor and stuntman is there to have fun, to give us our money's worth, without ever taking himself seriously. Cruise is good and he knows it, his jovial assurance guaranteeing our buy-in to this adrenaline- and testosterone-fuelled blockbuster – the presence of a female pilot serving to placate critics who would have been quick to point out such an absence and also vaguely echoes the role of Kelly McGillis in the 1986 opus.

The screenplay by Ehren Kruger (several "Transformers"), Eric Warren Singer ("American Scam") and Christopher McQuarrie (director and screenwriter of many of the "Mission: Impossible") is satisfyingly simple and no need to have seen the first part to appreciate this sensational "Maverick". Pete Mitchell (Tom Cruise) now leads a solitary existence in the Mojave Desert, the memory of Goose being ever-present, when his old friend Admiral Kazansky alias Iceman (Val Kilmer whose scenes are emotionally charged, the actor who can no longer speak normally since his throat cancer) sends him on a mission. At the same time, Pete also finds Penny (Jennifer Connelly), an old flame.

It falls to Maverick to train a group of excellent pilots in order to ensure the destruction of a uranium enrichment complex in enemy country (which state is never mentioned, but given the presence of snow, we suspects it is Russia). Additional emotional difficulty, Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Goose, is one of the selected.

The production by Joseph Kosinski (the aesthetically impeccable "L'Oubli", also with Tom Cruise) is nervous without necessarily preventing the spectators from admiring the aerial scenes whose mastery impresses all the more as the actors pilot themselves the fighter jets at Cruise's request.

The whole team – we suspect that Tom Cruise supervised the whole thing with Jerry Bruckheimer – strives to maintain a balance between aerial action scenes and dramatic moments, between schoolboy humor and good quality nostalgia – the scene in which Rooster interprets “Great Ball of Fire” on the piano is impeccable – and between large-scale spectacle and more intimate sequences. In a word, we are satisfied. And fully satisfied.

Rating: 4 out of 5