This one is from 1986, Jiminy Christmas, what’s going on with these 80s movies? Tom Cruise looked too young for this role, and Anthony Edwards – he had hair! A couple of key takeaways – first, there were some really cringe-worthy scenes in this flick. So bad, I’m sure Cruise and Edwards never watch them again. The worst of the worst – the singing scenes… God-awful. The cast was a good one, Cruise played Maverick, Edwards was Goose, Val Kilmer played Iceman. These were the main character students. The instructors were Tom Skerritt as Viper, Michael “He-man voice” Ironsides as Jester and Kelly McGillis as Charlie, a non-flying civilian instructor and Maverick’s love interest.
Second takeaway – man did Cruise have bad teeth when he was starting out. His teeth were so bad, they qualify as teef! And will be referred to as such henceforth. So at first I noticed Cruise smiled a lot without opening his mouth. It looked strange and forced. In his more recent movies, he is always grinning toothily (is that a word?). Speaking of grinning, don’t you hate the expression, “shit eating grin”? I think the first time I read that expression was in a Stephen King book. He used that one a lot, and it always struck a nerve. Why would anyone eat shit, and even if they did, why would they be grinning? Isn’t it the last thing you would be doing if you were forced to eat shit? A shit-eating grimace, now that’s an expression I can get behind.
Anywho, where in the blue blazes was I? Jiminy, off the rails again. So about Tom’s teef – good Lord they gave Mister Ed a run for his money. But it’s not just the big ol’ honkin’ horse teef, his upper incisors were right out of a bugs bunny cartoon, plus they were crooked and leaned to his left. Crikey, was he born in the UK? How did he even get into the business with those teef? Every close up scene, I couldn’t even focus on what he or anyone else was saying, I just waited with baited breath for him to flash those FUCKING TEEF!! I burst out laughing multiple times, the wife wondering what was so funny. Ever see those Billy-Bob teef they sell around Halloween for hillbilly costumes? Well guess what, they were modeled after Tom Cruise’s teef! In fact, he makes millions in royalties every year. That’s right, I looked it up on the internets. And besides, as good ol’ uncle Don says, “and everybody knows it.”
So back to the movie, TopGun is the naval weapons fighter school that teaches pilots air-to-air combat. Maverick and Iceman quickly emerged as the two best pilots in competition for the TopGun trophy. Maverick was the hotdog, who took chances and skirted the rules, Iceman was more conventional. The usual rivalry nonsense ensued. Dr. Greene, I mean Goose, died from a brain injury while ejecting from an out of control F14 (this poor guy has a knack for dying in shows he’s in, Dr. Greene died of brain cancer in ER). Maverick then suffered from the cliché personal doubt after Goose’s death, almost dropped out of TopGun. But he stays and graduates, after which they got called into real battle in the Pacific when an American ship was disabled and then dogged by Russian forces. I found it lame that the “bad guy” Russian planes, flight suits and helmets were all black, as if black = bad? Come on, man! In any event, the Americans scrambled jets as defense, and OH COME ON, MAN! Russia nearly started WWIII by shooting down one of our planes. Ridiculous! And of course, Maverick was the big hero, shooting down three Russians and ends the skirmish. THE END!
See if you can watch it without fixating on Tom’s TEEF! I swear it’s mission impossible! I give this four Mr. Ed whinnies out of six. And speaking of whinnies, I just googled the word to make sure I spelled it right. Then, for the heck of it, I watched a youtube video of a horse whinnying. Jiminy Christmas, it’s horrifying! If I ever saw a horse for the first time trotting up to me and it made that horrific sound, I’d probably keel over dead from fright. My hippophobia strikes again!