You can’t help but instantly fall in love with any movie that features the strains of Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” not just once, but twice within the opening ten minutes, immediately letting you know that Tony Scott’s action classic Top Gun is going to be dripping in the cheesiest trappings of the 1980s.
In fact, the entire soundtrack is the musical equivalent of fondue, featuring plenty of bangers you’d be more than happy to double dip into, but that doesn’t mean the tale of Tom Cruise’s Maverick can only be enjoyed through an ironic lens.
Sure, the biggest action sequences and most memorable lines of dialogue became part of the cultural lexicon a long time ago, but the fighter pilot adventure still holds up thanks to some impressively-orchestrated scenes of aerial excitement, not to mention a timeless lead performance from Cruise that elevated him to the top of the Hollywood A-list, a position he still holds onto with an iron grip 36 years later.
The sequel has been delayed by almost three years and is finally penciled in to arrive this summer, but Netflix subscribers have clearly felt the need, the need for… revisiting Top Gun, with FlixPatrol revealing that it’s been flying up the Netflix global most-watched list this week.