‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Has a Secret Weapon Even Its Makers Didn’t Know About: A Great and Timely Villain (Hint: It’s Russia)

The striking if not really shocking success of “Top Gun: Maverick” is built around the simple fact that it’s an exquisitely executed blockbuster.

It seems to have everything a commercial retro action movie would need: a prime movie star — one of the only ones left — who still knows how to fold a movie around his image; jaw-dropping aerial-combat sequences that blow away any hint of green-screen fakery (because those are real actors lifting off and flying); the kind of ’80s nostalgia that, at this point, is almost too potent to call mere nostalgia — it’s more like nostalgia for nostalgia; a story just good enough to pluck every carefully planted heartstring of authority-figure-vs.-cocky-upstart, Tom Cruise-is-old-but-still-master-of-the-game resonance; plus the haunting presence of Val Kilmer (though it would have been even better if they’d let him speak in his own damaged voice).Of course, what good would an

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