Weekend Watch: Top Gun: Maverick, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Stranger Things Season 4

Hot shot pilots, hunted Jedi and horrible creatures

Image Credit: Paramount Pictures

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Tom Cruise flies once more, Ewan McGregor confronts fate and the Force and Things get even Stranger. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite

In 1989, I was 13 and I watched Top Gun every weekend for almost that entire year. It was a time when movies took longer to come to home video (especially in the UK) and the film – which was released in 1986 – was finally available to buy. My friend and I had loved it, thrilling to the action sequences and buying the soundtrack on CD, playing it until it was mostly only useful as a drink coaster.

That 1980s classic is a prime example of blockbuster filmmaking – big scope, roughly coherent script, macho posturing and, thanks to director Tony Scott, saturated visuals. It also confirmed Tom Cruise’s star power, his thousand-watt smile used to full effect, while he also proved he could handle more dramatic moments such as – sob! – the death of Anthony Edwards’ buddy and loyal Radar Intercept Officer Goose.

Top Gun: Maverick’s biggest triumphant isn’t simply channelling the original, it’s honouring it by taking the concept and challenging it all at once. This doesn’t just catch up with Maverick, it has something to say about the present world of aerial combat and people in general. Cruise, of course, is still Cruise, but here he gives Pete “Maverick” Mitchell some additional layers. Sometimes Maverick is wallowing in grief and regret, other times he’s back to his old self, all daring hot shot who never met a rule he wasn’t ready to break.

Maverick might be far removed from his younger days, but he’s committed to staying in the pilot’s seat, dodging promotions and getting busted for not following orders while those around him rise through the ranks. Still a Captain, he’s now a test pilot leading a team testing a hypersonic craft, which as the film opens, is about to be grounded permanently by grouchy Rear Admiral Cain (Ed Harris), who sees drones as the future.

Our hero, though, has an ace up his sleeve – former rival-turned-friend Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) – who is commander of the Pacific Fleet these days, having soared in his own career. He bails Maverick out each time, and this time finds a way to have him assigned back to the Navy’s flight school teach a new mission to some graduates who represent the best of the best (expect to hear that phrase a few times in the new movie, just as in the original). While Maverick isn’t thrilled to be back at what flyers call “Topgun” (he didn’t exactly work out as an instructor last time), he throws himself into the task, even if it brings him into contact with Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Goose’s son. Awkward!

Powered by Cruise’s sheer movie star charm, and directing with skill and style by Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun: Maverick is a capital-B blockbuster, with all the advantages and disadvantages that delivers. The flying sequences are, as advertised, outstanding, the push to have as much shot practically leading to thrilling action that will be hard to beat this year. It’s a common refrain to hear “see this one in cinemas”, but in this case, Top Gun: Maverick truly rewards that. So, if you can go safely and you feel comfortable, seek out an IMAX or similar. You won’t regret it.

But this is not just Cruise’s show – the rest of the cast around him make it work, whether it’s Teller as the bitter, driven Rooster, Glen Powell providing Iceman vibes as Hangman, Monica Barbaro proving she can fly with the best (of the best of them as Phoenix or Lewis Pullman bringing the LOLs as the nervy Bob. Jon Hamm is just one of the requisite figures of authority who evolve to show grudging respect for Mav, while Bashir Salahuddin steals scenes as Maverick’s colleague Bernie ‘Hondo’ Coleman. Jennifer Connelly, meanwhile, is effortlessly cool as a figure from Maverick’s past that I won’t spoil here.

There are times when this Top Gun follow-up is as silly and over the top as the original (you’ll giggle at how many times the mission parameters are spelled out as though the audience is made up of toddlers), but that mostly gives you a feeling of reassurance. And it’s certainly a more mature effort, digging far deeper into Maverick’s personality than ever before. One of the characters early on calls our hero “obsolete”, but as Maverick retorts: “not today.” Not indeed.

Teenage me would be thrilled to know Top Gun would eventually spawn such a fantastic sequel. [Cough]-something me is just as ready to high-five the nearest available stranger.

Top Gun: Maverick is in cinemas now.

Image Credit: Disney+

As with Marvel, the launch of Disney+ has provided both a place for fans to find new Star Wars stories (or old characters in new adventures) and a way for the company to keep the pipe of profitability flowing. The two endeavours don’t always line up perfectly – recent series The Book Of Boba Fett had promise but ultimately felt like a dead-end alleyway that was then blasted through for a road to more Mandalorian – but when they’re in sync, it’s a joy to behold.

After that most recent stumble in Star Wars on the small screen, it’s a relief to report that Obi-Wan Kenobi, featuring the return of Ewan McGregor’s Jedi Knight, is firmly in the win column.

At least, to begin with; Disney made only the first two episodes that are on the site right now available to press, so there’s still the chance that this one will start strong but fail to stick the landing.

Yet for the moment, it’s a great way to re-enter the universe that feels built for fans but is also accessible to people who just want the story of a good man haunted by past choices trying to do the right thing while conflicted about what exactly that is.

It’s 10 years since the events of Revenge Of The Sith and Obi-Wan is hiding out on Tatooine. Going by the name “Ben”, he’s living a mundane life of working in a fish processing plant and spending his downtime either in his cave or checking in on young Luke Skywalker from a distance.

Meanwhile, the Empire is reaching its prime, sending Inquisitors out to hunt down the scattered surviving Jedi. But when an old friend reaches out for help, Obi-Wan realises he can’t keep hiding forever.  

McGregor is superb in this, careworn and nervy as you can well imagine even a skilled Jedi Knight might be after his star pupil Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and dear friend died – or so he initially thinks – after they fought. Oh, and the small matter of almost everyone he knew and loved being massacred by a powerful Senator-turned-Emperor. Though ‘Ben’s plan of growing his beard a little longer and wearing a slightly different cloak doesn’t completely convince as a good idea, McGregor and head writer Joby Harold do enough to have it work

Other highlights so far? Kumail Nanjiani, continuing his run of elevating everything he’s in (though Obi-Wan doesn’t need the same help that Eternals did) and a superb, textured villain turn from Moses Ingram as Third Sister, AKA Reva, one of the Inquisitors hunting the Jedi down. Kudos also to Joel Edgerton, whose snarky, weathered Owen Lars plays perfectly off McGregor’s lead.

There are other solid elements to the show, but I won’t get into those to not reveal anything that has been well hidden by the teasers and trailers. Suffice to say, this is a show that zags when you thought it was going to zig.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had to be re-tooled after the initial scripts didn’t pass muster and was, at one point, to be a film. The work put in since, by Harold and director Deborah Chow (not forgetting cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, who makes everything look great and composer Natalie Holt, who scored alongside John Williams and crafted a superior soundscape) has paid off. This is Star Wars succeeding on the small screen, and until the movie side of the franchise can take off again, I’m happy to watch this soar.

The first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi are on Disney+ now. New episodes will land weekly on Fridays. Right now, it is planned as a miniseries of six episodes, with four left to arrive.

Image Credit: Netflix

The kids of Stranger Things, having grown up in the 1980s, would probably love Top Gun: Maverick and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Assuming, of course, they live long enough to see either.

They are certainly growing, though, the inexorable march of time one thing that the creative team (mostly, one effective moment aside) cannot fight. Delayed by the pandemic, the show has moved the story along to a year since Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) took part in the Battle of Starcourt and closed the gate to the Upside Down forever. Of course, it was never going to be that easy.

Unlike the third, Season 4 feels like a real refresh for the show – though splitting the characters across different places means it’s harder to handle the various threads, it largely works (David Harbour, though, is mostly marooned in his own plot that offers some chances for more depth from Hooper, but often feels like a distraction).

Eleven, Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) are off with Joyce (Winona Ryder) in California, while Dustin, Mike, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Steve, Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Robin (Maya Hawke), Max (Sadie Sink) and the rest are still in Hawkins. And things are even more distanced than we thought, as we learn that Lucas is now on the school’s basketball team, itching to be part of the popular crowd. That’s a smart move on the creators’ part, as it creates some added tension and allows Lucas to be part of another storyline once the main mystery kicks in.

It is, as you might expect, not going to be easy again for our heroes. Eleven is having trouble fitting in at school, targeted by her own crowd of bullies (and, following the last season finale’s epic battle, sans her powers). Dustin and Mike are part of a Dungeons & Dragons group called the Hellfire Club, which is soon the target of Satanic Panic when teens start dying again in Hawkins.

All the young actors (and their older co-stars) acquit themselves admirably, but if there’s an MVP for me, it’s Priah Ferguson, who plays Lucas’ sister Erica, and is a guided missile of sass who hits her target with every line. Running from the truth, and especially the secrets of the past, is a big theme for this season, and it weaves the episodes together, a spine that works wonders for the narrative.

It’s not just the storylines that feel refreshed – the filmmaking style has taken a leap here. While the show was never bland, there are establishing shots and transitions that recall Better Call Saul for their setup and studied intensity. And in episode four, directed by producer Shawn Levy, one audacious action scene stands out as unlike anything the series has attempted. Likewise, the scares are also ramped up, the horror cranked to a level that makes some of the previous seasons’ set pieces look about as terrifying as a broken ghost train on a wet Sunday afternoon in Margate.

It has been a long wait for new Stranger Things, but the new season makes it worth the delay.

Stranger Things: Season 4, Volume One (Seven episodes) are on Netflix now. I’ve seen all seven.