4.5/5 stars A sequel as much powered by nostalgia as the latest aviation tech, Top Gun: Maverick has been a long time coming – it’s 36 years since Tom Cruise felt the need for speed in Tony Scott’s tale of US Navy pilots, playing the daredevil Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Since then, the film’s iconography has sunk into popular culture – the soundtrack led by Berlin’s Take My Breath Away , muscular military men playing beach volleyball, Kelly McGillis clinging to Cruise on his Kawasaki. Top Gun: Maverick plays with all this, while acknowledging that its lead character is older. “You should be at least a two-star admiral by now,” says Ed Harris’ ball-buster, who soon ships Maverick back to his old base. His task? To tutor a new generation of “Top Gun” pilots for a crazy-sounding mission that involves flying into a heavily fortified “enemy” valley and knocking out a nuclear site. Among the gang is Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s former flyboy friend Goose. There are further callbacks, including the fleshing out of Maverick’s former flame Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly) who was only alluded to in the first film. Danger Zone , the Kenny Loggins jam first heard in the original, gets an airing. And there’s a hugely poignant scene with Val Kilmer, back briefly as Iceman despite struggling with his speech after throat cancer. “Time,” the pilots are told, is “your greatest adversary”; it’s a speech that could apply to many here. Of the newcomers, Glen Powell is enjoyable as Hangman, who comes locked and loaded with plenty of bravura dialogue (“I was too good to be true”) and Mad Men ’s Jon Hamm is well cast as the uptight Admiral Cyclone. But, as you would expect, this is Cruise’s film. While there’s a flirtation with single mother Penny, who now runs The Hard Deck bar near to the base, there’s an air of regret encircling Maverick. No wife, no kids and a skill set that might soon be overtaken by drone technology. Yet fear not – Top Gun: Maverick is no downer. Joseph Kosinski (who directed Cruise in 2013’s Oblivion ) marshals some stunning aerial sequences, so good they’ll have you in a cold sweat. The final act is one tension-laced scene after another, while Kosinski wisely keeps the opposition at a distance – think Christopher Nolan’s Tenet , where the foes were anonymous. With music by Lady Gaga and Hans Zimmer, action scenes tailor-made for hulking IMAX screens, and Cruise flaunting it in a white naval uniform, it’s Top Gun dialled up to Mach 10. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook