It's gotten high scores on all the ideologically poisoned "review" sites and scores ultra high among fans.
Just came back from it just felt like a good, old school action flick with a Hero's journey type of story. It's great, and it does a proper "sendoff" with a character (Rooster) being a strong link between the previous movie and this movie.
This is one of those "turn your brain off and enjoy the ride" sorta deals. It just tries to be a good movie, and it's damn good. Lots of FUCK YEAH AMERICA tones to it as well.
I still want to know who the "enemy" they were fighting are though. Considering the wintery location it must be a reference to Russia, with the Su-57's kinda making an appearance as their opposition.
Regardless it's a great movie, even leftist publications are praising it. Go watch it if you have time.
According to that one drunk guy it's not a marvel style cg fuck fest where nothing looks real.
That's more or less the only reason anyone needs to throw some money at it. CG animation, much less CG in what's supposed to be a """""live action""""" movie needs to fucking die.
CG itself isn't bad its how its used
its a tool that can be used to enhance an existing scene and practical effects
problem is hack film-makers use it as a universal fix-all, why bother making actual sets and using actual practical effects it can be all done with the magic of CG
the only "live action CG" film I let pass is James Camerons avatar as they created a lot of the techniques and technology they needed to make the film while the story isn't brilliant (IMO the extended cuts fix some of the issues with it - and then the deleted scenes would fix more if they were finished and in the fucking film but would also add another hour) it was still a great showcase of technology and technique
more recent CG heavy live action films just fail at a fundamental level you got the marvel films with all the heroes reacting to jack shit on a soundstage with next to no props and no extras, at least avatar had props and extras on the soundstage with the extras doing things off camera so the actors had something to reACT to
Tom Cruise himself insisted that everything be as authentic and "real" as possible. They used actual fighter planes with the actors actually experiencing the G-forces that would be impacting the characters in the actual movie.
Everything was as practical effects as possible, and if they couldn't, I heard they used replica models. I imagine a lot of the reasons why it was so fucking good was Tom Cruise himself being autistic about keeping it as genuine to the sequel as possible.
Also it helps that Cruise, while he's much older, didn't feel like he was "out of his place" like old man Harrison Ford was with the Indiana Jones sequel that doesn't exist.
Maverick was good and everyone in the movie knew he was good. You didn't have to question it, it was a "Gary Stu" but who the fuck cares, he's still charismatic, he's still badass, and he's still a damn good pilot.