Top Gun Maverick

Actors: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris

Rating: 9 out of 10, You might have heard this is a good movie. That is incorrect. It is a great movie that significantly improves on the original. Cruise is in a word, a true movie star, and he delivers once again. He brings the swagger but also the internal conflicts of the title character, dealing with advancing age while trying to teach a younger generation, including Goose’s son about combat flying. There is a vast improvement in the military hardware aspects over the original as well, thanks to CGI, of course. While the acting is very good it’s the action that makes this movie special. There were so many times you’ll want to jump out of the seat and cheer at the improbable, okay, impossible, hijinks displayed. A pure, summer popcorn movie that delivers on every promise. Best movie I’ve seen this year.

MVP: Cruise as Maverick shows some surprising depth

Thor, Love and Thunder

Actors: Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Natalie Portman

Rating: 8 out of 10, Thor: Love and Thunder continues Marvel’s winning streak but is very different. Marvel noted the audience reactions to the whimsically funny parts of the prior Waititi Thor movie and decided to go all in. This was Taika fully unbound and the first half of the movie was dedicated almost non-stop to poking fun at the whole scenario. It was funny but it became almost too much before the plot remembered it needed to move forward and provide the requisite action. I was worried going in about Portman as the female Thor but it was done well, if completely at a very obliging Hemsworth’s deference. So, a lot of fun as a full-on, popcorn filled, summer Marvel blockbuster, with a more than a full dose of Waititi flair.

MVP: Hemsworth as Thor, he so owns this role