The year’s biggest film releases onto the physical home formats following a digital release earlier in the year, Tom Cruise flying in with an as-expected solid Blu-ray offer loaded with around 30 minutes of bonus materials.
I’ve made no secret of my love of Top Gun: Maverick, as has the rest of Planet Earth with the film running at a huge $1.4 billion in box-office receipts as I type this. The film, held back over the pandemic, and the movie unofficially tasked with saving cinema has more than accomplished its mission. And then some.
As I type this, I am able to still travel within county lines to see Top Gun: Maverick on the big screen – in a cinema. The film was officially released in May following a huge world premiere in California and a global roll-out in Cannes just days after. For any film to still be playing in some multiplexes some six months on is some achievement.
Now audiences do have a choice with the DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K available to all. The film is presented in its theatrical cut, which I was most glowing about after seeing in Cannes the day after the European premiere, and it still flies high on the home format. Full of nostalgia, great performances, especially from its younger cast, Top Gun: Maverick will please fans old and new.
On the Blu-ray, from which we review this, are bonus features that add up to about thirty minutes of screen time. A portion of that are the music videos for the two big tracks from the film; “Hold My Hand” by Lady Gaga., and “I Ain’t Worried” by Onerepublic. There are a host of making-of featurettes; ‘Cleared for Take Off’, about the aviation filming, ‘Breaking New Ground – Filming Top Gun: Maverick’, a more general making of segment running at just under eight minutes, ‘A Love Letter to Aviation’, about Tom Cruise’s love of flying, and finally ‘Forging the Darkstar’, a look at the hypersonic aircraft seen during the beginning of the movie, and the filming around it. All are excellent, but with a film as big as this, we really want more. Perhaps a bigger offering will be offered in the future.
As it stands, this is a must-have release – a film that flew the flag for cinema and accomplished that seemingly impossible mission of getting our bums back in cinema seats.
‘Top Gun: Maverick’
Summary
A weak offering in terms of the number of extras, but what we do get is pretty decent. The film itself – a soaraway success that you’ll want to watch again and again.
