As foreign Hitchcock-like-attempted-thrillers go, this is one of the better ones I have seen in recent years. The story here is simple. I woman is in an apartment looking up at another building and noticing only at night that some strange man is constantly staring at her. It is not possible for her to see this man during the day, due to the angle, the light and the curtains, so the “only nighttime” part of this is very well done. This mystery grows over time to this man following her around, appearing on a subway with some news of other local murders of women in the area.
The cast is composed of mostly unknown actors, starring Maika Monroe as the main character Julia, with the film shot in Bucharest Romania. The director is an up and coming new talent, Chloe Okuno. The good news here is that even though this is a foreign film there are no subtitles – for those who hate reading subtitles. At times and in too many areas of this movie, the action is too slow and I found some of this boring, and nothing we have not seen before. The ending was rather surprising but I found it a satisfying conclusion overall.
I am very surprised at the very high 86% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, I agree more with the audience ratings of 72% with a mild recommendation.
In recent years, with sequels that are many years after the original, the trend has been to rely on the huge name recognition and popularity of the original movie and forego the most important things: the story and the screenplay. Not this time. “Top Gun Maverick” has a great story and screenplay and is a very well made movie, worthy of the original Top Gun released in 1986. This film started production in 2018 – 2019 and was ready for release in 2020 and due to Covid the delay has been over 2 years. Top Gun Maverick may have set the record for not only the longest delays, but the longest period of time – 36 years – from the original to the sequel.
The main story is very well done, with Maverick, played by Tom Cruise being called back to the Top Gun training school to teach the best Navy Pilots to accomplish an almost impossible and dangerous task of blowing up a nuclear facility deep within the mountains of some unnamed foreign country. The flying required of diving down close to the ground, dropping a bomb and then diving up causing 10G forces required extremely impressive special effects, both during the training scenes and the very well done climax. Once again, Tom Cruise and many of his young co-stars did some of their own stunts, risking their lives to make a movie. One can easily argue that Tom Cruise should have won 2 Academy Awards for “A Few Good Men”, 1992, and “Born on the Fourth of July” 1990. But there is no doubt that Tom Cruise is by far the best stunt man in the history of movies. He has already risked his life many times in previous Mission Impossible productions, with two more in the Pipeline “Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and 2”, set to be released in 2023 and 2024. Any fan of Tom Cruise cannot help worrying that maybe one day his risk taking with all of these films may one day be too much. Hopefully that day will never happen. Risk taking with dangerous stunts should be measured with the obvious realization that “Its only a movie”. No movie will ever be worth anyone’s life.
The actor Val Kilmer, who reprises his role as Iceman in the original Top Gun movie, makes a depressing appearance in this movie. In recent years, Val Kilmer has unfortunately almost died of throat cancer, and after two tracheotomies, he can no longer eat and now needs a feeding tube. The one scene Kilmer had with Tom Cruise in this movie involved Kilmer typing on a computer and later barely able to speak. In this sequel, Ice Man and Maverick are friends; one of the best parts of this sequel. Actor Miles Teller plays the son of Maverick’s close friend Goose, who died in the first movie and I thought that the conflicts they had in this story were very real and believable. The remaining cast of young Navy Pilots were also outstanding in their roles as was John Ham who played the Admiral in charge of the entire mission.
Actress Jennifer Connelly, plays Tom Cruise’s girlfriend, with no mention of Kelly McGillis, Maverick’s girlfriend in the original movie – a fact that I considered a harsh reality of the business of movie making.
The Rotten Tomatoes for Top Gun Maverick are an extremely high 97% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.
For the fourth time in the history of this blog, I have been asked to review the independent movie production called “Basement”. Over the years, after seeing so many movies there are times where a film reminds you of a scene or a scenario from some other movie we have seen before. For the movie Basement, where several different people are trapped in a basement where a war is going on above them, this reminded me of the conflicts among people under extreme stress in “Night of the Living Dead”, 1968 directed by the late George A. Romero. In this classic original horror movie, dead people were becoming zombies trying to break into a house.
The most compelling issue with a situation like this is that under extreme conditions, people eventually become who they really are, because fear brings out the worst in everybody. In the case of Basement, the character Steve, who has a pregnant wife, and is a bigot who causes all the conflict with everybody in the basement. Unfortunately Steve also likes to point his gun at people and think that he is always in charge, even though he is not in his own house. Steve, played very well by actor Hunter Emery has the most interest acting scenes in this movie as he transitions from being a horrendous violent person, to eventually waking up to what is really the most important.
Anyone who has ambitions of breaking into the impossible field of movie making has to admire anyone who is able to get funding or spends their own money to write, produce and direct any small budget movie. For Basement, the director and writer is Robert Rosenbaum, with all unknown actors: Brian Krause, Hunter Emery, Rizwan Manji and RJ Brown. I thought the acting within high stress situations where a war and loud explosions were going on overhead, where very well done.
This movie will be available on Demand through the following link:
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 