Before deliberately channeling the STAR WARS Death Star trench run, TOP GUN: MAVERICK mirrors THE RIGHT STUFF with a breaking-the-barrier sequence that even features Ed Harris, playing the first of two uptight authority-figures, frowning and scowling at anything our returning hero does...

The thing is, Tom Cruise's MAVERICK really doesn't break many rules, sent back to the familiar TOP GUN headquarters to train a group of youngsters for the Lucas-inspired mission: a single plane (flanked by guardians) needs to strategically drop a bomb into a perfectly tight space to blow-up an entire villainous compound...

Before that, Maverick reconnects with a bartender ex-girlfriend, who seems to have existed in a parenthetical second movie while we're watching the third. And of the young hot-shots, only Miles Teller as Goose's son Rooster has any distinguishable purpose... though mostly forced from either standard exposition or winsome glances at 1980's photographs in-between long, awkward, pin-drop silences when there's no bombastic aerial noise...

Concealing an extremely weak plot that finally kicks into gear with a behind-enemy-lines twist, perhaps explaining the ridiculously high scores and glowing reviews: But that kind of last-minute-saves-the-picture stuff deletes any worthwhile rewatchability factor: Basically, once you've seen TOP GUN: MAVERICK you've seen it all.