In one of the more memorable lines in the original Top Gun, Maverick gets chewed out by a superior who tells him, "Son, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash." Sometimes I wonder if Tom Cruise took that putdown as a personal challenge. No movie star seems to work harder or push himself further than Cruise these days. Ridiculously entertaining Top Gun: Maverick. Cruise was in his early 20s when he first played Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, the cocky young Navy pilot with the aviator sunglasses, the Kawasaki motorcycle and the need for speed. In the sequel, he's as arrogant and insubordinate as ever: Now a Navy test pilot in his late 50s, Maverick still knows how to tick off his superiors, as we see in an exciting opening sequence where he pushes a new plane beyond its limits. Partly as punishment, he's ordered to return to TOPGUN, the elite pilot-training school, and train its best and brightest for an impossibly dangerous new mission. And so the three screenwriters of Top Gun: Maverick - including Cruise's regular Mission: Impossible writer-director, Christopher McQuarrie - have taken the threads of the original and spun them into an intergenerational male weepie, a dad movie of truly epic proportions. They're tapping into nostalgia for the original, while aiming for new levels of emotional grandeur. To that end, the soundtrack features a Lady Gaga song, "Hold My Hand." It's nowhere near as iconic a chart topper as the original movie's "Take My Breath Away," but tugs at your heartstrings nonetheless. The action sequences are much more thrilling and immersive than in the original. You feel like you're really in the cockpit with these pilots, and that's because you are: The actors underwent intense flight training and flew actual planes during shooting. In that respect, Top Gun: Maverick feels like a throwback to a lost era of practical moviemaking, before computer-generated visual effects took over Hollywood. You start to understand why Cruise, the creative force behind the movie, was so driven to make it: In telling a story where older and younger pilots butt heads, and state-of-the-art F-18s duke it out with rusty old F-14s, he's trying to show us that there's room for the old and the new to coexist. He's also advancing a case for the enduring appeal of the movies and their power to transport us with viscerally gripping action and big, sweeping emotions.

Wow. The first Top Gun is a classic, and as we all know, sequels/remakes rarely beat the original, especially 36 years later e.g. The Matrix Resurrections. Well, this film just broke that theory.

Aside from the adrenaline-pumping edge or your seat action, this story also had heart. It successfully overachieves, and surpasses its predecessor on every level.

The directing by novice Joseph Kosinski was outstanding, especially considering this was his fourth ever full length feature film. All the stunts, visuals and V/SFX were breathtaking, and the camera work perfection, that you'll feel you're in the cockpit of the jet. The soundtrack and score was amazing. The 131 min runtime literally flew by with its spot-on pacing. I actually wanted to see more. Casting and performances by all were also perfection, and once again Tom Cruise reminds us why he is still one of the top actors in the industry.

There's nothing I can critique or wish was better, as this gem was perfect in every way. Absolutely stunning, action-packed with a compelling and emotional story, as well as being a visual masterpiece. And the fact the dog fights were real and not CGI (actors had to train to fly the jets), just makes this film that much more magnificent. I'll be definitely seeing this again and adding the DVD to my collection. It's a rare perfect 10/10 must see from me.

If you were a late teen or in your early twenties in the mid 1980's the world was very different. No computers, no mobile phones, no internet, no DVD's. We had cars though, and bikes, and we loved them, and we loved films too. The original Top Gun captured this moment in time perfectly, and gave us a thrilling ride like we had never seen before. The humour, the games, the bikes, the aircraft and my word, those flying scenes. We went back to the cinema to see it again and again, and spent the following decades quoting the movie. As time went on, it remained like a static snapshot in time to perfectly represent that magical point in our lives for so many of us.

Now, 36 years later, we are a generation that has lost our parents, we've had our own children who have moved on themselves, and we now approach the end of our own careers and our young selves are gone forever.

This film is the missing bookend to that whole generation. The original was there for the start of our young adult lives, and this new film now marks the end. It's magnificent.

I'm 55, but yesterday, just for one last night, I was 19 again. Thank you.