The handsome and always-bankable Tom Cruise gets me duped into shelling out $5.99 to rent this. After $1.4 billion+ worldwide gross earnings at the box office and nonstop heavy promotion, I feel compelled to join the bandwagon to revel in this cinematic experience. Fifteen minutes in, I am still giving the movie the benefit of the doubt that something ground-breaking is about to happen. Instead, the shallow, cheesy dialogue continues for the rest of the movie, making all of the characters one-dimensional, even Maverick. Why is Maverick so humble and smiling all the time while the rest of the characters are obnoxious braggarts? It seems that the budget is mostly focused on the set, props, and g-force training for the actors, and they've forgotten to come up with a good script and decent character development. The casting of Jennifer Connelly is a poor choice. Next to the charming Tom Cruise, she has zero charm and therefore there is zero chemistry between them. I should have read the bad reviews first before renting this, instead I trusted Tom Cruise and the movie's box office success, and now I'm $6 and 2 hours in the hole.