This is nothing but a self indulging joy ride for Tom Cruise in US fighter jets funded by the masses. I can literally see him sitting in his mansion going: "what other cool stuff could I do in life... hmm fly in a modern, operational military jet?? How to do that? Hmm lets do a TG sequal. And to be fair that would be all in all fine if at least he did his homework and made a decent movie.

How this movie has gotten such good reviews is beyond me... I work as a pilot, flying jet aircraft, and I can say that the realism, when it comes to the flying and military aspects, is non-existent. Period. In basically every facet of the movie. There are some crumbs of realism in there but they are obliterated by nonsense hollywood action for dramatic effect. This movie is about as realistic from a flying and military perspective as the worst XBOX flying game, mind you game, not simulator. The "Star wars rip off trench run mission" that the movie revolves around is simply and plainly, absolute nonsense... with too many unrealistic aspects to even begin to list... Ok, just one, the millions of SAM sites along the trench, but none in the trench? Or in the crater?

One of the biggest pet peeves I have is that the so called 5th gen fighter (SU-57 in real life) is elevated to some sort of super plane, which the US military (the most ridiculously well funded military and air force in the world) is somehow incapable of matching...clearly they need more funding.... except that the US also has 5th gen fighters... two types even... one of which is in the movie in the beginning.. the F-35. But it is eloquently, very briefly discarded in the movie as not appropriate for the mission due to "gps jamming" but for some reason the F18 is unaffected by this...sigh... true reason: there is no two seater version so there would be no IRL shots of the cast. Which is fine I guess, but the whole underdog premise, which military technology wise the US would never be, is just nonsense.

OK so the realism is about as present as Kelly McGillis in this movie. It could have still been a decent movie otherwise...right?? But no, between the terrible, juvenile acting, over the top Americanised/hollywood, "forced" comedy and drama, this is really just a cheesy, walk down memory lane for Tom Cruise, with throwbacks to the original movie (which was heaps better and actually more realistic than this one!). The only thing I remotely liked were the flight scenes and footage, however even that was dampened by all the edited and mashed together shots...

This should not be called Top Gun 2, it should be called Fast and The Furious, aircraft drift....