Manny Jacinto | Through the Shattered Lens

Poor Peter and Emma!

Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) both work in the same building in downtown Atlanta. That’s one thing that they have in common. Peter works for a soulless nursing home company. At a typical meeting, Peter listens as the other executives debate whether or not it’s actually necessary to spend so much money feeding the residents. Peter dreams of starting his own nursing home, one where the elderly will be treated with the respect that they deserve. Emma is an administrative assistant in an orthodontist’s office. She lives in an apartment with two college students, even though she hasn’t been enrolled in college for years. Though they’re both in their early thirties, neither Peter nor Emma have really be able to get their lives going yet. That’s another thing that they have in common.

And there’s a third thing that they have in common. They’ve both recently been dumped. Anne (Gina Rodriguez) left Peter because she felt that Peter was stuck in a rut and she’s now dating a pretentious but dashing middle school theater teacher named Logan (Manny Jacinto). Emma’s ex, personal trainer Noah (Scott Eastwood), is now deeply in love with a pastry chef named Ginny (Clark Backo). Anne and Noah may have moved on but both Peter and Emma want their exes back.

When Emma and Peter meet each other while looking for a place to cry in the office stairwell, they strike up a quick friendship. They also hatch a brilliant scheme. Emma will volunteer to work on Logan’s production of Little Shop of Horrors and, while doing so, she’ll seduce him and cause Anne to break up with him. Meanwhile, Peter will befriend Noah and convince him that Ginny really isn’t right for him.

Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as expected. We’ve all seen Strangers on a Train enough times to know that these “You’ll help me and I’ll help you” schemes never seem to work out. Peter does manage to befriend Noah but it turns out that Noah is deeply in love with Ginny. Meanwhile, Logan is more than open to the idea of being seduced but it turns out that Anne is also interested in exploring new things. While Peter and Noah are hitting the clubs and getting taunted, for being “old,” by Pete Davidson, Emma is being forced to sing Suddenly Seymour with the 13 year-old star of Little Shop of Horrors. Peter and Emma are also growing closer, even as they try to get back with their exes.

Currently streaming on Prime, I Want You Back is an amusing romantic comedy, one that works due to a surprisingly clever script and a charming cast. For all the indignities that Peter and Emma go through in their quest to win back the exes, the film always treats their emotions with respect. The scene in which 30-something Emma wipes away tears while a bespectacled 13 year-old sings Suddenly Seymour to her is a wonderfully comedic moment but, because Emma feels like a fully realized character instead of just a comedic caricature, the film works on an emotional level as well. “I’m not ready for this,” Emma mutters as the kid starts to sing and it’s a funny line that works because it’s also a line to which everyone can relate. Everyone knows the feeling. Jenny Slate and Charlie Day are charming as the two leads and both Scott Eastwood and Gina Rodriguez bring some welcome depth to the role of the exes. No one in this film turns out to be as simple or as one-dimensional as the viewer might initially expect. Instead, we find ourselves caring about not only Emma and Peter but also about Noah and Anne, as well.

I Want You Back is a sweet-natured and genuinely funny romantic comedy. The final scene is perfect. Check it out on Prime.

From the moment it was announced, I had low expectations for Top Gun: Maverick. I figured it was just Tom Cruise milking his other franchise for what it’s worth. I mean, I adore the Mission: Impossible movies, but was there ever really a need to return to the Top Gun Universe? I didn’t believe so, particularly with Joseph Kosinski being involved. I enjoyed Oblivion and I’ll die on the hill that is Tron: Legacy, but also recognize that Tron: Legacy could have been a better film if the writers just didn’t paste the original film and wipe it down with a new coat of paint. I think I may have incorrectly put that on Kosinski, rather than the writers.

Top Gun: Maverick does pretty much the same thing here. If you’ve seen the original Top Gun, you already have the blueprint for the sequel in your head. You could play both films side by side, and not counting for the pacing between them, align each scene with the sequel’s counterpart. Does that even make for a sequel? Did we learn nothing from Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

I don’t know. I didn’t hate Top Gun: Maverick at all. It’s just that odd feeling at having seen it all before and almost completely guessing what’s going to happen next. If you can get past that, it’s a good film. By the end of the movie, I wanted to buy a computer, a Thrustmaster HOTAS set and a copy of DCS to fly with.

Top Gun: Maverick continues the story of ace fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, once the 2nd Best at Top Gun. Now testing special aircraft, he lands himself into trouble again with the Navy, only to be sent back to Top Gun. Yes, he was an instructor there and this new film references this. However, Maverick’s return has him training a team of elite pilots on a special bombing mission requiring some unorthodox maneuvers. In training the pilots, the best will be declared the mission leader. When Maverick discovers that one of pilots is Brad Bradshaw (Miles Teller, Whiplash), son of his deceased Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) Goose, tensions erupt. Can Maverick get the team to improve and be ready for the mission?

Writing wise, Top Gun: Maverick isn’t bad. It gets in, does the job and gets right back out. No scene is drawn out too far, no storyline angle seems to be mulled on. With two main writers and three screenplay writers (including Mission: Impossible‘s Christopher McQuarrie), it’s pretty tight. Again, there’s the problem of using the same story map as the original. There doesn’t appear to be many obstacles for them to hurdle, storywise. Like Underwater, having so many familiar sites and scenes helps. What I did like was that it didn’t point many fingers at any one place. The opposing fighters are “5th Gen” craft, but you don’t really get any kind of feeling of where they’re from. Were they Russian? Serbian? Chinese? Canadian? Unless I missed something in the watch, I didn’t catch who the enemy was. They were just men in planes with missiles and guns.

I liked the cast here. Jon Hamm (Tag)makes for a good opponent to Cruise, and they have good scenes together. There’s also something of a love story to the film, though it’s light. While it would have been cool to have Kelly McGinnis back, Jennifer Connelly (Alita: Battle Angel) made for a good replacement and her character’s okay. For the young pilots, I particularly liked Lewis Pullman’s (Bad Times at the El Royale) Bob and Monica Barbero (NBCs Chicago Justice) Phoenix, along with Glen Powell’s (Everybody Wants Some!) Hangman. Each one brought some style and attitude to the mix.

By far the best entry here is Val Kilmer’s return as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. The story was written in a way to include his issues with speech, given his cancer diagnosis. He honestly has one of most memorable moments in the film, and I loved how they tied his character back to Maverick’s. I have to give some kudos to Cruise, Kilmer and company for that. If there’s any other reason to see the film other than the planes, that was it.

Oh, the flight and fight scenes! Goodness, what a treat! I usually sit in the front row, where no one ever sits. Since the Regal RPX screen is huge (but not Lincoln Center IMAX beastly), that first row is some distance away. The sense of speed was cool and there were some fantastic shots both in cockpit and out, which had me leaning in my seat with the action with every hard left and right. While I’ve always been more of a fan of the F-14 Tomcat used in the original, there is a legitimate reason for the team to have to use the F-18 Hornet. While the main mission feels a lot like the trench run from Star Wars: A New Hope, it’s a great sequence overall. Watching Maverick make a plane dance is a sight to behold, and there is at least one scene in the film that contained an awesome thrust vectoring moment. Think of thrust vectoring like drifting a plane in midair the way you would drift a car in a turn. It’s hard to describe, but beautiful when seen.

Musically, I don’t have much to say. While Lorne Balfe (Mission: Impossible – Fallout), Hans Zimmer (Dune), Harold Faltermeyer (Top Gun) and Lady Gaga (House of Gucci) all worked on this, I can’t say that any tune other than the original Top Gun Anthem really stood out for me. Not a terrible thing at all, just not extremely memorable. At least with Fallout, I was humming the 2nd half of “Stairs and Rooftops” until I bought the album. Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” is a great piece and ties in pretty well to where it’s used.

Overall, Top Gun: Maverick is a treat, and was better than I expected. It gets a little heavy handed at following the same path of the original, the but the new story is enjoyable enough to have it stand out on it own.