Cruising to the Danger Zone
By Rich Bruso
August 2006
When asked, I can no longer deny seeing a DVD with an extra entitled "Male Action."
And, it turns out Val Kilmer was once on the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
How is it, you ask, that these two statements could possibly describe the same movie? I'll give you one more hint: It was the most over-the-top, macho cheese-laden movie of 1986, and helped catapult (sorry) Tom Cruise into stardom. Yeah, that's right, we watched Top Gun, though in hindsight Amy thinks we should have re-watched The Wild Women of Wongo.
It turns out Amy had never really seen Top Gun all the way through, probably because she was never an 11 year old boy. To be fair, not everyone who watched the movie was a young boy; some kids brought their parents. And quite a few hardcore audiophiles have this DVD in their collection, mostly to show off their sound system. Top Gun also won plenty of awards back in the day, but aside from the ”Best Foreign Language Film" win in Japan, all of the little golden statues had to do with the sound of the film.
Effects, soundtrack, even the editing, pretty much all areas of the sound of the film received awards. Why no statues for screenwriting? Not even a nomination? Here's a sample:
"Don't screw around with me Maverick. You're a hell of an instinctive pilot. Maybe too good. I'd like to bust your butt but I can't. I got another problem here. I gotta send somebody from this squadron to Miramar. I gotta do something here, I still can’t believe it. I gotta give you your dream shot! I'm gonna send you up against the best. You two characters are going to Top Gun."
To put this into perspective, even Crocodile Dundee was nominated for Best Screenplay that year.
But was it a fun movie? After all, Top Gun was released as a summer blockbuster, not as a serious look into man's inner struggle with… anything. High energy music, male bonding, stuff blowing up left and right, and he gets the girl. A few times. In ultra-slow motion, but retaining the coveted PG rating to ensure the 11 year old boys could get in. Yeah, it was fun, as long as the jets were in the air, preferably blowing stuff up.
At least the producers did try to entice female viewers into the theaters. The guys spend almost as much time wearing only towels in the locker room as they do wearing flight suits in their jets. And the movie certainly pioneered the gratuitous use of all-male beach volleyball. And Take My Breath Away isn't exactly a manly-man anthem.
The real fun of this DVD is in the extras. "Male Action" was the official title of one of the TV commercials from 1986, one of several on the DVD. Actually, all the extras provide a somewhat humorous peek back in time to the mid-80's, none more so than the music videos. A big haired guy in tight, shiny pants playing guitar on a jet wing in a smoky hangar? Check. Berlin performing in an airplane graveyard? Check. Kenny Loggins (in full Miami Vice-style getup) singing about the Danger Zone from his bed? Unfortunately, check.
Okay, maybe the dialog dragged a bit between the action scenes (I highly recommend fast forwarding the "love" scenes), but in the end, what really sticks with you are the jet scenes and the music. Specifically the guitar heavy main theme (dee dee dee, da da dee dee dee dee), which I may, eventually, evict from my head. Years from now, I'll think back and say, "The movie wasn't really that bad, was it? Let's watch it again." And, hopefully, Amy will give me a good smack on the head and pull out The Wild Women of Wongo. We'll both be grateful.
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