About as formulaic as you can get. It really is a burger, fries and pop film. I don't usually have a problem with American guys slapping themselves on the back and proclaiming their superiority, but this film took it to a whole new level. Pointlessly. Irritatingly. Maverick, the protagonist, was, you guessed it, the maverick! No real explanation why, he just is. And he railed against "the man", or the admiral in this case who, tried to shut down Maverick, but Maverick always won through by breaking the rules and... uhh so predictable, why bother? Val Kilmer had an exceedingly strange and pointless cameo. There was love interest and a teenager. The teenager did nothing, just kind of appeared said something meaningless and went. It was a long film with very little content. If you absolutely love planes whizzing around then you might find something here. If you want depth, story, three dimensional characters, look elsewhere. I was really looking forward to this film and just feel completely let down. I'd get more satisfaction reading the side of a box of diabetes inducing confectionary.