It's basically '
Ace Combat: The Movie' - with all the associated silliness one would expect from that concept (right down to the real-world mission the characters eventually fly).
It's essentially on the same level as 2005's '
Stealth', except '
Stealth' had slightly less forgettable characters and better air combat visuals.
The colour palette and cinematography
does earn a worthy mention, but taken as a whole, it came across as less like a '
Top Gun' sequel and more like if they remade '
Iron Eagle' with a decent budget.
Mildly fun time-waster (probably a lot more so if you're with friends and/or alcohol), but mostly sort of forgettable.
Some spoilery stuff follows:
Spoiler
The military side of it made very little sense, at all. For example, coming up with a reason why the film couldn't use F-35s? The film has Maverick come up with an utterly nonsensical claim that they can't be flown during GPS jamming. Even though the much older F/A-18 clearly doesn't have that problem?
They could have just made an off-hand mention about some other global crisis requiring most F-35s to be deployed there with none to spare. Something vaguely plausible. But no... Comic book-level nonsense, it is. Which is sort of the entire film's mindset.
Why is Maverick pulled off of test pilot duties? Because they need him, damn it! They need him for... Well, nobody quite seems to know why in the actual film. He's just handed a mission which crews on an existing tour of duty could very easily fly. There's literally nothing which requires his personal knowledge or experience, which felt like a major wasted opportunity to help flesh out his background.
Then we come to the actual pilots. Who are, like, BIGGER! And BETTER! Because these ones have already graduated Top Gun, man! They're the BEST of the BEST of the BEST of the BEST of the BEST! And we know that! We know that because Maverick tells them they... Apparently haven't ever trained for air-to-air combat? Like, ever? Even though they've already graduated from the very school which is famous for refreshing skills on precisely that and... OK, so, Maverick decides this is an excellent opportunity to waste most of his deadline (for a strike mission) on making them try to perfect guns-only combat.
Quite why he does this is never clarified. But it makes about as much sense as there being no escorts or SEAD. If anything, the story could have been made better by concentrating on these guys being the escort flight, but... Again... Lazy writing.
Story-wise, it's essentially at the level of something like 'Fire Birds'/'Wings Of The Apache'.
So, there's a romantic interest. Except they've cast Jennifer Connelly as the daughter of the Admiral he was once hot for, back during the first film. With any other actress, that would have been fine, but it just made me keep picturing a 'Top Gun'-aged naval aviator Cruise sniffing around 'Labyrinth'-aged high school babysitter Connelly during the mid-eighties and... Yeah, not great optics.
BUT THE FLYING SCENES!
That's what you paid for! That's what you're here to see! Stop analysing the story! F**k the characters! You're hot for some of that jet-on-jet action, right up the tailpipe!
Yeah, those sequences are OK. The SU-57 is, ironically, depicted using moves copied from You Tube videos of F-35 performances. The actual SU-57 hasn't shown anything like those capabilities at air shows. But that's a technical thing casual viewers won't pick up on! What matters is how the air combat is choreographed with the music, right? I'd wholeheartedly agree!
After all, the original was at its best with those glorious aerobatics. They were great because they were so amazingly well choreographed with various songs and the musical score. To this day, those still stand up. The situations were unrealistic, but they feel exhilarating, because Tony Scott filmed and edited that footage so incredibly well.
This time... I don't even remember music playing. If it did, then it wasn't nearly as memorable or as emotionally impactful as the original's score was. There wasn't much in the way of spirit or passion to the resulting visuals, just flashiness. Compare them to what we had in 2005's 'Stealth' and they're honestly pretty similar (although, as I say, I kind of give 'Stealth' the edge for those; equally unrealistic, but better choreographed).
The air combat sequences aren't bad, they just... Don't feel very special? The original gave emotional impact to them. These don't, they're just flashy.
The characters? They're honestly even more forgettable than those of the original. I don't think lines from any of them are going to be entering the popular culture lexicon, like dialogue from original did. Nor is there anyone with the commanding gravitas of Viper and Jester from the original. Their equivalents are there, but Skerritt and Ironside very much helped to make the original events feel grounded and broke up the playing around. They felt like guys who've been through shit and would earn respect. These ones just... Exist.
