Rebecca Muckley

I’ll admit, I haven’t seen the first movie but I saw this one because my friends invited me, and I was really baffled by most of it. I wasn’t confused as the entire plot (save how the climax unfolded) was really predictable, just baffled by the writing. I get that this movie is a little bit outside my genre, but I’ve never seen a movie pander this much to the male gaze before. The only female characters are Smurfette, a hot lady who’s into the lead because hot lady, and child. (Hot lady never contributes to the plot besides telling Maverick to believe in himself and be eye candy) Seriously, the male characters all got some sort of trait to develop them a little bit, but Phoenix is just girl. Then again, Rooster is the only character that actually shows any kind of change at all over the course of the story. One thing I really would’ve liked to see is the ‘bad guys’ have their face be shown a little bit. The ‘good guys’ all have clear visors and take their masks off inside the cockpit so the audience can see their expressions and get to know them, but the bad guys are completely covered and faceless. There would’ve been some much needed nuance to the movie as a whole if there was any acknowledgement at all that a person just died when the enemies are shot at, but it was completely glossed over because you’re not supposed to think in a literal propaganda movie let alone criticize anything. I knew I wasn’t in the target audience for this movie when the characters ended their texts with periods lol During the introduction scene with all ten of the pilots on a screen for the first time, it took everything in me to not yell “Look! It’s Smurfette!” at Phoenix While I wouldn’t call it good, it definitely wasn’t boring. Then again, my ticket was only $4 because I was deployed, I wouldn’t have spent more