Lewis Pullman Archives

Review: ‘Thunderbolts*,’ starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen and Julia Louis-Dreyfus

April 29, 2025

by Carla Hay

Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan in “Thunderbolts*” (Photo by Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios)

Directed by Jake Schreier

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Washington, D.C., area and in New York City (and briefly in Malaysia), the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Thunderbolts*” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and multiracial people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A ragtag group of superheroes battle against a corrupt CIA director and a mysterious supervillain, as some of the superheroes cope with mental health issues.

Culture Audience: “Thunderbolts*” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and superhero movies that offer a more psychological perspective of the effects of superhero activity.

Pictured in center: Geraldine Viswanathan and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “Thunderbolts*” (Photo by Steve Swisher/Marvel Studios)

“Thunderbolts*” could be subtitled “Therapy for Superheroes” because the overarching theme is how superheroes cope with depression, guilt and anxiety. Thrilling action scenes and wisecracking jokes are mixed with trauma bonding, to mostly effective results. It works well-enough in this superhero movie because of the talented cast and because the movie’s tone and direction handle these issues with enough realistic compassion instead of wallowing in mawkishness.

Directed by Jake Schreier, “Thunderbolts*” was written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo. The screenwriting duo of Pearson and Calo is an inspired pairing because Pearson is mostly known for writing action films (including the 2021 Marvel superhero movie “Black Widow”), while Calo is known as an Emmy-winning co-showrunner for the FX on Hulu series “The Bear,” a show that mixes comedy with drama. “The Bear” tackles a lot of issues about how people are affected by families and childhood experiences. Many of these issues are in “Thunderbolts*” without the movie losing its superhero focus.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has become a complex web of stories that usually require seeing at least one previous Marvel movie to fully understand the plot and characters’ motives. In order for “Thunderbolts*” to resonate the most with viewers, it’s helpful for viewers to have at least seen “Black Widow” and the 2021 Disney+ limited series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” The 2018 movie “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and the 2019 movie “Avengers Endgame” are also suggested viewings, but they’re not essential to understanding the “Thunderbolts*” plot.

“Thunderbolts*” (the asterisk in the title is explained in the movie) begins by showing trained mercenary Yelena Belova (played by Florence Pugh), a native of Russia, standing on the top of the Merdeka 118 skyscraper building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In a voiceover, she’s heard saying in a morose tone: “There’s something wrong with me—an emptiness. I thought it started when my sister died, but it’s something bigger—a void. Or maybe I’m just bored.” Yelena then jumps off of the skyscraper.

Is Yelena suicidal? Maybe. But she isn’t attempting suicide in this scene. She’s testing her aerial limits before doing what she has vowed will be her last mercenary job for the U.S. government. As already seen in the prequel movie “Black Widow,” Yelena is the younger adoptive sister of Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson), who were both underwent brutal assassin/spy training as children in Russia. They trained in a notorious facility called the Red Room. Natasha/Black Widow died at the end of “Avengers Endgame.”

Yelena is currently living in the United States (in or near Washington, D.C.) and works as a mercenary for hire dong covert missions. In the beginning of the movie, she reports to CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who made a brief appearance at the end of “Black Widow” and had a prominent role in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” Valentina is corrupt and devious but hides her true nature by pretending with perky mannerisms and by saying that her life mission is to protect the people of the United States.

After this confessional monologue where Yelena says she’s feeling depressed, Yelena is seen invading a scientific lab and getting into fights to complete a mission to defeat people (scientists and armed guards) in the lab. One of the scientists who’s captured asks her why she’s there. “I’m in the cleanup business,” Yelena says in a deadpan voice. During this battle, one of the scientists says to Yelena: “Tell Valentina she’s making a mistake.”

What is this lab? And why does Valentina want it shut down? Those questions are answered in the movie. In the meantime, Yelena eventually tells Valentina that Yelena wants to quit the mercenary work because of job burnout. Yelena says that she would rather do more positive “public-facing” work where she gets to interact with people in more heroic and feel-good situations.

Also living in or near Washington, D.C., is boisterously loud Alexei Shostakov, also known as Red Guardian (played by David Harbour), who is Yelena’s adoptive father. Yelena goes to visit Alexei to tell him that she’s quitting her line of work. She hasn’t seen Alexei in years because of the events that happened in “Black Widow.”

Alexei is also going through his own depression issues for the opposite reasons: He misses being a “superhero” who works for a government, which is the status that he had in Russia about 30 years ago. Alexei and his former partner Melina Vostokoff (played by Rachel Weisz) raised Natasha and Yelena as a dysfunctional yet loving family of spies. Melina’s fate is shown in “Black Widow.”

Yelena sees that Alexei (a bachelor who lives alone) is living in a messy house, drinking a lot of alcohol, and operating a small business called Red Guardian Limo service, where he is the only employee and he has only one ramshackle old limo. The limo has the company slogan on the side of the car: “Protecting You From Boring Evening.” This slogan becomes a little bit of a running joke in the movie.

Alexei tries to hide his depression by pretending to Yelena that he’s doing well. She doesn’t believe him because she sees how unkempt Alexei and his home are. When Yelena tells Alexei that she wants to quit her job, Alexei is alarmed and disappointed. He tells her that he “would kill” to have the type of job that Yelena is about to quit.

Valentina is going through her own career problems. She is in the midst of impeachment hearings, where she denies all the accusations of corruption against her. In one of these hearings, she makes a statement what she has fully divested herself from any ownership in O.X.E., a company involved in secretive scientific research, but she still is a consulting member of O.X.E.’s board of directors.

Valentina’s main enemy in this impeachment proceeding is Congressman Gary (played by Wendell Pierce), who is leading the interrogations during the hearings. Congressman Gary only has a few scenes in the movie, but he’s made it clear that he doesn’t trust Valentina and he thinks she should be impeached. Anyone familiar with the Valentina character will already know that she’s the chief mastermind villain in “Thunderbolts*,” although she gets help from some other people whom she manipulates.

Bucky Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier (played by Sebastian Stan), is also in Washington, D.C.—this time as a first-term U.S. congressman. In Marvel Comics and in the MCU, Bucky is a “frenemy” of Captain America and has been a mostly a hero but sometimes a villain. In the MCU, Bucky was born in 1925, but his Winter Soldier superpowers have extended his life and allowed him to keep his physical appearance as an adult under the age of 50.

Valentina wants Bucky to be her ally, so Valentina sends her loyal assistant Mel (played by Geraldine Viswanathan) to reach out to Bucky and see if he can be helpful to Valentina. Mel is a mostly wide-eyed sidekick. The more that Mel finds out about Valentina’s real agenda, the more that Mel starts to question if she should stay loyal to Valentina.

Valentina isn’t ready to let Yelena go when Yelena tells her that Yelena no longer wants to be an undercover mercenary. Valentina orders Yelena to do one last mission: Go to a secret facility that has O.X.E.’s most secretive assets, find out who’s been stealing the assets, and kill whoever is responsible for the thefts. Yelena reluctantly does what she has told but finds out it’s a trap set by Valentina, who lured some other people in the trap.

At this facility, Yelena battles with arrogant John Walker, also known as U.S. Agent (played by Wyatt Russell); tough-minded Ava Starr, also known as Ghost (played by Hannah John-Kamen), who has the ability to make herself invisible for a few minutes at a time; and mute Antonia Dreykov, also known as Taskmaster (played by Olga Kurylenko), who have all been villains at one time or another in the MCU. Taskmaster is not in the “Thunderbolts*” as much as these other characters. She remains the most mysterious character in the group.

For reasons shown in “Thunderbolts*,” Taskmaster eventually goes away in this battle. Yelena, John and Ghost find out that they are stuck in the facility with a confused and mild-mannered man named Robert “Bob” Reynolds (played by Lewis Pullman), who suddenly appears during the ruckus. Bob is wearing the type of outfit that hospital patients wear. It’s later revealed that Bob has a troubled past as a meth addict, and he is a survivor of childhood abuse from his father.

As already revealed in the marketing for “Thunderbolts*,” the people in this ragtag group of superheroes and anti-heroes are Yelena, Bucky, John, Red Dragon and Ghost. Bob (who doesn’t remember certain things) has sides to himself that are eventually revealed in the movie. Valentina has plans to introduce a “supersoldier” named Sentry who will do her bidding. The movie’s visual effects are adequately convincing but not outstanding.

Another running joke in the movie is how the group got the name Thunderbolts, which is a name that most of the members do not want for the group. There’s a scene where Yelena and Alexei reminisce about something embarrassing from her childhood that she doesn’t want a lot of people to know about her: When she was a girl, Yelena was part of a junior soccer team called the Thunderbolts, which never won a game. Compared to the highly admired Avengers, the superhero/anti-hero Thunderbolts are misfit underdogs, which is why Alexei thinks that Thunderbolts is a perfect name for them.

“Thunderbolts*” doesn’t have a lot of big surprises because the movie is very transparent about Valentina being the chief mastermind villain. There’s a big reveal at the end of the movie, while an end-credits scene shows the aftermath of this reveal 14 months after the reveal happened. What might surprise viewers the most is how deep the movie goes in intended tearjerker flashback scenes that show children being murdered or abused. (The violence against children is not seen on screen but is implied.)

There’s a flashback scene with childhood Bob (played by Clayton Cooper) and his unnamed parents (played by Joshua Mikel and Molly Carden) that is harrowing to watch. Valentina has her own disturbing flashback showing how she was trained from an early age to betray those who are close to her. (Chiara Stella has the role of childhood Valentina.) And Yelena, the movie’s “trauma queen,” has her own painful childhood memory depicted in a flashback scene. (Violet McGraw reprises her “Black Widow” role as childhood Yelena.)

The MCU has shown superheroes experiencing mental health issues before, but these issues were treated in a more superficial manner and were sometimes used as comedy. This tone of putting serious health issues in a joke-filled MCU superhero movie was most evident in 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder,” which got very divisive reactions from audiences. People who dislike “Thor: Love and Thunder” (written and directed by Taika Waititi) had a lot of criticism for how the movie infused comedy in areas that some MCU fans think should’ve had a more serious tone.

For example, Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth), the Norse God of Thunder, is shown being depressed in the beginning of “Thor: Love and Thunder.” That movie starts out with Thor abusing alcohol, overeating, losing his zest for life, and gaining enough weight to have a pot belly, because he feels lost and useless after the end of the epic war depicted in “Avengers Endgame.” Thor eventually is able to shed his fat and climb out of his depression, but this recovery is treated in a flippant manner where a narrator says that Thor goes from having a “dad bod to a god bod.”

“Thunderbolts*” takes time to meaningfully explore the psychological repercussions experienced by superheroes who have shady pasts where they were villains who murdered people. Yelena is struggling with massive amounts of guilt about what she did when she was a Red Room-trained assassin for the Russian government. Unlike the transformation of Thor in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” Yelena’s mental health struggles in “Thunderbolts*” don’t go away just because she starts doing good deeds as a superhero.

Bucky is supposed to be the unofficial leader of the Thunderbolts because he’s the oldest and most experienced member of the group. However, Yelena is the heart and soul of the “Thunderbolts*” movie. In many ways, she’s the leader of the group’s collective conscience—as tattered and conflicted as that conscience can be at times.

In “Thunderbolts*,” Pugh (who continues to excel in her acting performances) brings a soulful energy to her role as Yelena, who was more of a hardened warrior in “Black Widow.” Yelena is coping with depression but she isn’t entirely depressing because she still manages to say some comedic zingers to lighten the mood. She looks out for Bob (who is often in a fragile mental state of mind) and has some very effectively emphathetic scenes with him.

The other scene stealer in “Thunderbolts*,” is Louis-Dreyfus, who doesn’t play Valentina as an over-the-top villain but as a skilled con artist who is always working an angle that will be to her advantage. Even when things start to fall apart for Valentina, she remains relatively calm and projects an upbeat image. Valentina is masterful at putting a positive spin on something negative that she caused. This characteristic is most evident in the movie’s final scene, when Valentina makes a bold move.

The other principal cast members in “Thunderbolts*” stick close to their established personalities and handle their performances accordingly. Alexei continues to be the buffoonish comic relief. Bucky is mostly stoic and sidesteps the childhood trauma trajectory of the movie by saying he didn’t have any chldhood trauma. Even less is shown or told about the personal history of Ghost in “Thunderbolts*,” which makes Ghost a very underdeveloped character.

John is grappling with insecurities and loneliness because his wife Olivia Walker (played by Gabrielle Byndloss) has left him and has taken their underage son with her. A flashback scene shows that the marital problems had a lot to do with John being too self-absorbed in a personal scandal to be an attentive parent to his son. John wants to be the “alpha male” in any group that he’s in, so this personality trait will be problematic in many situations.

Pullman’s Bob Reynolds character makes his first appearance in the MCU. He leaves a memorable impression, although it’s very easy to figure out Bob’s purpose from the moment you see him in a hospital patient outfit in a secretive O.X.E. facility. If Bob had been seen first in regular clothes, then it wouldn’t be so easy to predict what eventually happens to Bob in the movie.

“Thunderbolts*” took somewhat of a risk by putting a lot of psychotherapy elements in what some people think should be a lightweight superhero movie. Without seeing the movie, some people might assume that these superheroes have become a bunch of wimpy whiners. Far from being about self-pity, “Thunderbolts*” takes a very mature look at what recovery from mental illness can look like for people who are expected to be strong for others but aren’t necessarily getting the psychiatric help that they need for themselves.

Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios will release “Thunderbolts*” in U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2025.

Review: ‘Riff Raff’ (2025), starring Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union, Lewis Pullman, Pete Davidson and Bill Murray

March 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

Gabrielle Union, Miles J. Harvey and Ed Harris in “Riff Raff” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)

“Riff Raff” (2025)

Directed by Dito Montiel

Some language in Italian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Maine and in Boston, the comedy/drama film “Riff Raff” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An ex-criminal, his wife and his teenage stepson have their lives disrupted when his estranged adult son from a previous marriage unexpectedly shows up because he’s hiding from criminals who want to kill the wayward son.

Culture Audience: “Riff Raff” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a meandering and clumsy crime dramedy that isn’t as interesting as it thinks it is.

Bill Murray, Pete Davidson and Scott Michael Campbell in “Riff Raff” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate)

“Riff Raff” would’ve been more interesting if this comedy/drama focused on the mismatched criminals played by Bill Murray and Pete Davidson, who have the best scenes in the movie. The dysfunctional blended family at the center of the story is a dull drag. Murray and Davidson, whose “Riff Raff” characters are bickering opposites, have wickedly funny scenes that succeed in the movie’s intention to be a dark comedy. Unfortunately, their scenes are less than one-third of this disappointing dud of a film.

Directed by Dito Montiel and written by John Pollono, “Riff Raff” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. “Riff Raff” is obviously trying to be like the crime movies that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino made in the 1990s, but “Riff Raff” falls woefully short because most of the characters are tedious and two-dimensional. The story is supposed to unfold in layers but ends up being a jumbled mess.

“Riff Raff” (which takes place in Maine and in Boston) begins by showing an elderly man named Vincent Gaultier (played by Ed Harris) having an easygoing, heart-to-heart talk with his teenage stepson DJ (played by Miles J. Harvey) in the living room of the family’s vacation home in Maine. (“Riff Raff” was actually filmed in New Jersey.) The movie’s opening scene has Vincent and DJ talking about DJ’s future.

DJ’s mother is a homemaker named Sandy (played by Gabrielle Union), who has been married to Vincent for an untold number of years (definitely less than 10 years), after being a widow. Sandy (who’s about 20 years younger than Vincent) was previously married to DJ’s father Laurence (played by Eli Massillon), whose sudden death is something that Sandy doesn’t like to talk about. However, a flashback shows how Laurence died. Sandy doesn’t like to talk about her marriage to Laurence at all.

DJ is going to be a first-year student at Dartmouth College in the autumn. Throughout the film, there are many examples of why DJ was accepted into this prestigious Ivy League college: He’s very intelligent and unapologetically nerdy when spouting trivia facts that he seems to infuse in almost every conversation.

DJ has recently had his heart broken by a love interest named Brittany, who’s never seen in the movie. It’s unclear if Brittany was ever DJ’s official “girlfriend” or if they were just casually dating, but it’s mentioned that Brittany abruptly dumped DJ for a soccer player right before DJ and Brittany were supposed to go to their prom together as dates. “Brittany’s a jerk,” Vincent tells DJ to comfort him. As for DJ’s future dating prospects, Vincent advises DJ to repeat to himself: “You’re not going to settle.”

DJ’s despondency over his love life leads Vincent to tell DJ a secret that he knows Sandy doesn’t want DJ to know: Laurence cheated on Sandy during their marriage. Vincent makes DJ promise that DJ won’t tell Sandy that Vincent told DJ this information. Vincent also wants DJ to pretend that DJ doesn’t even know this information.

It’s the first indication that this family has secrets and hidden resentments. And it’s also the first indication that Vincent isn’t the great father he appears to be. There is no good reason for Vincent to tell DJ this information about DJ’s dead father. Telling this information to DJ would hurt DJ’s feelings and would selfishly make Vincent look like a better husband/father than Laurence was. Laurence died when DJ was very young, so DJ has mixed feelings about Laurence not being in his life.

By all accounts, Vincent and Sandy have a solid marriage where they are faithful to each other. Sandy is the type of person who likes things to be as perfect as possible, without any disruptions to her plans. The home is meticulously well-kept. The family also owns another upscale home in the Boston area. It’s later mentioned that this vacation house in Maine is a “secret getaway” house that Vincent owns under someone else’s name.

A lot of Sandy’s “perfect life” image is a façade: Vincent obtained his wealth by being a criminal, but Vincent has now “retired” from a life of crime. Flashbacks reveal that Sandy knows about Vincent past life as a criminal but doesn’t really care, as long as he’s not currently involved in criminal activities, and she can enjoy the life of being a spoiled and pampered housewife.

However, Vincent’s past comes crashing back into his current life on this day when he’s having this talk with DJ. Three people who live in the Boston area show up unannounced at this vacation house: Vincent’s adult son Rocco (played by Lewis Pullman), who is brooding and has a violent bad temper; Rocco’s pregnant Italian-immigrant girlfriend Marina (played by Emanuela Postacchini), who is open and friendly; and Vincent’s ex-wife/Rocco’s mother Ruth (played by Jennifer Coolidge), who is unconscious when they arrive at the house.

When Ruth regains consciousness, she says she was drugged without her knowledge. However, it’s obvious that frequently intoxicated Ruth probably had a lot to do with why she was in that unconscious state. Ruth is the most obnoxious character in the movie, because she mostly just complains rudely, insults other people, and acts ditzy in her frazzled state of mind. Coolidge continues to be typecast as a talkative, scatter-brained character.

Rocco has not seen or spoken to Vincent in quite some time. Vincent isn’t happy at all to see these uninvited visitors—especially ex-wife Ruth, because they had a very bitter divorce. Rocco quickly introduces Marina as someone he’s been dating for almost a year. Marina is eight-and-a-half months pregnant with their first child, who is a boy. Before Rocco and Marina became a couple, she dated another thug in the Boston area named Johnnie (played by Michael Angelo Covino), which means she has an attraction to “bad boys.”

When people ask Rocco or Marina if a name has been chosen for the couple’s unborn son, these expectant parents say yes, but it’s a secret. The end of the movie shows what they’ve named their son. And it’s the most predictable choice possible. It’s also a missed opportunity for “Riff Raff” to have a great joke at the end of the film, instead of having a boring and formulaic ending.

“Riff Raff” stumbles for far too long with awkward family scenes before it’s finally revealed the reason why these three unexpected visitors went to this vacation house in Maine: Rocco is hiding from a crime boss named Leftie Hannigan (played by Murray), who wants to kill Rocco because of something that Rocco did. (It’s revealed in a flashback what Rocco did to get Leftie on a murderous vendetta.) Leftie’s sidekick is a bumbling dimwit named Lonnie (played by Davidson), who constantly frustrates cold and calculating Leftie for making stupid mistakes.

Marina and Ruth both know what Rocco did to be put on Leftie’s hit list. Vincent knows Leftie from Vincent’s criminal past. But at least half of “Riff Raff” is about Ruth and Rocco showing resentment for the comfortable and “respectable” life that Vincent has made for himself, Sandy and DJ. Predictably, Ruth and Sandy despise each other. Rocco is jealous of DJ because DJ gets the type of devoted fatherly attention from Vincent that Rocco never got from Vincent.

Leftie and Lonnie’s hunt for Rocco is oddly dropped into the story about halfway through the movie, when it should have been introduced much earlier in the story. The one truly hilarious scene in “Riff Raff” is when Leftie and Lonnie go to the house that Vincent owns in a Boston suburb. Instead of finding Rocco there, Leftie and Lonnie encounter two nosy and talkative neighbors: a married couple named Garrison (played by P.J. Byrne) and Janet (played by Brooke Dillman), who are curious about these two strangers.

“Riff Raff” undoubtedly has a very talented cast. However, their talents are wasted in this film that moves at an uneven pace and focuses mostly on the blandest characters in the movie. Union does a serviceable job as image-conscious Sandy, but the rest of the characters in Vincent’s family have hollow personalities, with equally hollow acting performances. The contrasts between the “Riff Raff” scenes with and without Murray and Davidson are too noticeable in showing that “Riff Raff” really only comes alive when Murray and Davidson are in the film. All the other scenes are like watching potentially good ideas slowly die from a painful death.

Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate released “Riff Raff” in U.S. cinemas on February 28, 2025.

Review: ‘Skincare,’ starring Elizabeth Banks

September 15, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Skincare”

Directed by Elizabeth Banks

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy/drama film “Skincare” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An esthetician’s life spirals out of control after she is targeted by a mysterious harasser who seems to want to put her out of business.

Culture Audience: “Skincare” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Elizabeth Banks and dark satires about blind ambition.

Luis Gerardo Méndez in “Skincare” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Skincare” is more of a dark comedy about ambition than a mystery thriller about harassment. Elizabeth Banks carries this uneven but interesting movie with her performance as an increasingly unhinged esthetician. “Skincare” is best appreciated if viewers don’t have expectations that it’s a horror movie.

Directed by Austin Peters, “Skincare” was co-written by Peters, Sam Freilich and Deering Regans. It might have been better off as short film, because the plot is very simple, and the middle section of the film tends to drag with repetition. The movie, which takes place and was filmed in Los Angeles, has some biting commentary on the fickleness of celebrity worship culture, but it doesn’t bite hard enough. “Skincare” is loosely based on the real-life case of Los Angeles-area aesthetician Dawn DaLuise, who was accused in 2014 of a murder-for-hire plot against a rival.

“Skincare” begins by showing esthetician Hope Goldman (played by Banks) in a TV studio dressing room, as she’s about to get ready for a interview that will be recorded for a talk show called “The Brett & Kylie Show,” hosted by sleazy Brett Wright (played by Nathan Fillion) and perky Kylie Curson (played by Julie Chang). Hope is doing her own makeup, which is the first sign that she’s probably an image-obsessed control freak. It’s likely she refused to have the show’s makeup artist do Hope’s makeup because Hope wants to prove she’s the best skincare expert.

Hope is the owner of Hope Goldman Skincare, which has some celebrity clients, including a starlet named Jessica (played by Ella Balinska), whom Hope considers to be one of her most important customers. Hope is doing this TV interview mainly to promote a new Hope Goldman Skincare product line that’s she launching in the near future. Hope brags that her high-end products are made in Italy. In the interview, she says: “I took everything I learned from 20 years in this business and bottled it.”

Hope (who is a bachelorette with no children) might appear to be successful and living out her dreams, but behind the scenes, her life is kind of a mess. She’s overdue on her rent at the small boutique-styled space that she uses for her skincare business. And her new skincare product business has been costing her money that she can’t afford. As she explains to her landlord Jeff (played by John Billingsley), when he mildly scolds her for not paying her overdue rent: Hope’s chief investor has suddenly disappeared, and she’s had to pay for the expenses that the investor was supposed to cover, but she promises Jeff she will pay the rent in the coming days.

Hope has only one employee who is shown in the movie. Her name is Marine (played Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), who has various duties, including being a receptionist, administrative assistant and public relations manager. It’s one of the noticeable flaws in “Skincare” that Hope’s employee situation looks unrealistic. Anyone launching this type of skincare business on such a wide scale would have more than one employee. Marine is competent, hard-working and very loyal to Hope. Marine also seems to be the closest thing that loner Hope has to being a friend.

One day, Hope finds out that another esthetician has opened a business across the street from her business. Jeff is also the landlord for that retail space. Hope’s new rival is Angel Vergara (played by Luis Gerardo Méndez), the ambitious owner of Shimmer by Angel, which has a flashier and trendier aesthetic than Hope Goldman Skincare. At first, Hope is cordial to Angel because she thinks that they have different clientele. But their competition becomes bitter when Angel tells her not to park in the space that’s reserved for his customers, and Jessica ends up becoming Angel’s customer.

Hope complains to Jeff about Angel and asks Jeff to evict him, but Jeff’s business-minded response is that he doesn’t evict tenants who pay their rent on time. To make matters worse for Hope, someone hacked into Hope’s email database and sent an embarrassing message from her email address to her nearly 5,000 email contacts. The messages had a rambling confession saying that Hope is lonely, horny, and financially broke. Some the recipients of this message are Hope’s clients, who cancel appointments with her because they now think that she’s mentally ill.

Hope is convinced that Angel is responsible for the hacking, even though she has no proof. She is also getting harassing phone calls where the caller breathes heavily and then hangs up. Hope thinks Angel is also the cause of this phone harassment because he’s the only person she can think of who would have a motive to sabotage her business. It sets her on a path to stop the harassment by any means necessary.

The fake email message goes viral and damages Hope’s reputation. As a result, her prerecorded interview on “The Brett & Kylie Show” gets cancelled. And what a coincidence: “The Brett & Kylie Show” replaces Hope’s interview with an interview that the show did with Angel. A tire on Hope’s car is later slashed.

While all of this turmoil is going on, Hope meets Jordan Weaver (played by Lewis Pullman), a 26-year-old who has recently moved to Los Angeles. Jordan is having a casual fling with elderly and affluent Colleen (played by Wendie Malick), one of Hope’s customers. Colleen, who is old enough to be Jordan’s grandmother, is the one who introduces Jordan to Hope. Jordan says he’s an aspiring actor, but in the meantime, he’s a “life coach” who teaches martial arts and spiritual healing.

Jordan and Hope eventually become friendly with each other, in the way that people become close when they think they can use each other for personal benefits. Angel’s business starts to experience even more success as Hope’s business goes on a steep decline, which enrages Hope and fuels her jealous quest to get revenge before her skincare product line officially launches. There’s a shady character named Armen (played by Erik Palladino) who comes into the picture and has a pivotal role in the story.

The plot of “Skincare” goes off into some tangents that could have been explored better but are just left to dangle without any meaningful follow-up. For example, there’s a scene where Brett (who is married but tells Hope that he’s on the brink of divorce) makes sexual advances on Hope after the “Brett & Kylie Show” cancelled her interview to be televised. Brett hints that he could put her back on his TV show if she gives him what he wants sexually.

Hope handles this sexual harassment in an astute way, but there’s really no purpose to this scene except to show that Brett is corrupt, and Hope has ways to get out of this type of tricky situation. It also seems odd that the movie makes it look like “The Brett & Kylie Show” is the only possible TV show that would be interested in interviewing Hope, before her scandal happened. Brett ends up being a character who is barely in the movie, which gives the impression that perhaps there were more scenes in the film that didn’t make the final cut.

This sexual harassment scene seems to be part of the movie’s larger commentary on the shallowness of transactional “quid pro quo” relationships, particularly in a celebrity-oriented city such as Los Angeles. A recurring “joke” in the movie is that Hope offers free samples of her skincare products as a way to ingratiate herself to people whom she thinks can do her favors later on. Hope also chases fame for herself just as much as some of the celebrities whom she wants as clients.

“Skincare” might leave some viewers confused about the intended tone of the film. The movie starts off looking like a drama but then it becomes more darkly comical as it goes along. Some of the characters seem more like caricatures the more time that they spend on screen. Thanks to Banks’ “go for broke” performance, “Skincare” blurs the lines between victims and villains, which will make some viewers more uncomfortable than others.

IFC Films released “Skincare” in U.S. cinemas on August 16, 2024.

Review: ‘The Starling Girl,’ starring Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Wrenn Schmidt, Austin Abrams and Jimmi Simpson

May 20, 2023

by Carla Hay

“The Starling Girl”

Directed by Laurel Parmet

Culture Representation: Taking place in Kentucky in the mid-2000s, the dramatic film “The Starling Girl” has an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 17-year-old girl in a strict, religious community has a taboo affair with her married, 28-year-old youth pastor, while her troubled father struggles with his own personal issues.

Culture Audience: “The Starling Girl” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies that realistically explore issues of religion, teenage sexual awakenings, self-identity and moral hypocrisy.

Jimmi Simpson and Wrenn Schmidt in “The Starling Girl” (Photo by Brian Lannin/Bleecker Street)

“The Starling Girl” is a memorable coming-of-age story that artfully juxtaposes depictions of repression and rebellion without falling into the usual plot clichés. Eliza Scanlen gives a riveting performance as a 17-year-old experiencing self-discovery. It’s a movie that doesn’t offer easy answers to the main characters’ problems, but it’s made clear to viewers that these problems are made worse in a culture of denial and hypocrisy.

“The Starling Girl” (which had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival) is an impressive feature-film debut from writer/director Laurel Parmet. The movie takes place in Kentucky in the mid-2000s, but “The Starling Girl” has a timeless quality that transcends locations and generations, in the way that it depicts the relatable, restless energy of a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. The teenager wants the freedom of an adult, but legally the teenager has to be treated like a child. Depending on the teenager’s environment and individual personality, this transitional phase can either help or hurt a teenager’s emotional growth.

In “The Starling Girl,” the title character is 17-year-old Jemima “Jem” Starling (played by Scanlen), who is navigating her way to adulthood in a conservative Christian community. It’s a community where people of the female gender are expected to be subservient to people of the male gender. Women and girls in this community are monitored and judged for what they say, do and wear around men and boys. Something as simple as wearing an outfit that shows the outline of a bra underneath can be reason enough for a girl to get scolded or lectured to by an adult.

It’s what happens to Jem after a chaste dance performance that she does with some other local teenage girls at their community church. The girls all wear matching long white dresses. Dancing is a passion for Jem, who also likes to do choreography for the group. After their performance, which gets polite applause from the congregation, Jem is in a very good mood.

But her upbeat mood soon turns to despair when, after the church service, the church pastor’s wife Anne Taylor (played by K.J. Baker) says sternly to Jem in front of Jem’s family and some other people in the congregation: “Mrs. Stone has noticed that the bra is visible from your dress.” Jem’s homemaker mother Heidi Starling (played by Wrenn Schmidt) says apologetically, “We try to be very conscious, but sometimes things slip.”

Within the first 15 minutes of “The Starling Girl,” it becomes obvious that Jem’s parents, especially her mother, want to impress church leader Pastor Taylor (played by Kyle Secor) and his family. Pastor Taylor has two children: 28-year-old Owen Taylor (played by Lewis Pullman) and 17-year-old Ben Taylor (played by Austin Abrams), who is expected to be the one to date Jem and possibly be her future husband. Heidi in particular is enthusiastic about the possibility of Ben and Jem getting married, because the marriage would elevate the status of the Starling family in the community. Even though Ben seems to be attracted to Jem, she is not at all attracted to Ben, who is socially awkward and a little weird.

After being reprimanded about her bra being visible through her dress, Jem goes outside the church to a semi-secluded area of the lawn and cries in shame. Jem think she’s alone, but doesn’t see until it’s too late that Owen is nearby and has been watching her. He tries to start a conversation with her, but she abruptly leaves in embarrassment. It’s soon revealed that Jem has had a crush on Owen for a very long time.

Owen has recently come back to his hometown after spending some time as a missionary in Puerto Rico. Owen is married to a pious and perky woman named Misty Taylor (played by Jessamine Burgum), who is a big believer in sticking to religious traditions. By contrast, Owen is open to non-traditional methods of religious worship. And even though Owen has been appointed as the youth pastor of the church, what he really wants to do with his life is be a farmer.

Jem is also someone who is struggling with what is expected of her and what she really wants to do with her life. For now, Jem is expected to marry and start a family not long after she graduates from high school, but Jem thinks she doesn’t want to be a wife and mother until she’s much older and more emotionally mature. Her mother Heidi has already decided that Ben would be a good match for Jem, but when Jem expresses reluctance to date Ben, her mother dismisses any of Jem’s concerns. Jem’s more lenient father Paul Starling (played by Jimmi Simpson) tells Jem that she doesn’t have to make up her mind right away about whether or not to date Ben.

At home, Heidi is a prudish taskmaster who expects the family to closely follow all of their religious teachings. Jem is the oldest of five kids. Her siblings are Noah Starling (played by Chris Dinner), who’s about 15 or 16; Rebecca “Becca” Starling (played by Claire Elizabeth Green), who’s about 13 or 14; Sarah Starling (played by Ellie May), who’s about 6 or 7; and a toddler named Jeremy Starling (played by Kieran Sitawi). Out of all of Jem’s siblings, Rebecca is the one who has the closest emotional bond to Jem.

During another religious service at the local church, a teenager named Edmond Tike (played by Ike Harrell), who’s about 16 or 17 years old, gets up in front of the congregation to ask for their forgiveness for sins that he says he committed but he does not detail. Edmond looks humiliated and ashamed when he tells the congregation that he’s now a “cleansed man.” He gets a lukewarm response from the audience. Pastor Taylor’s attitude toward Edmond is that Edmond is like an unruly puppy that needs patience and needs to be trained.

In the youth group meeting after the church service, some of the assembled teenagers gossip about Edmond, by saying he had just come back from a severe religious camp, which is notorious as a scary place where kids in the community are sent for punishment. According to the gossip, Edmond was sent there because he was caught looking at porn on a computer. Jem says self-righteously, “That’s why you have to be so careful with technology. It’s the easiest way for Satan to get to you.”

But it won’t be long before Jem gets caught up in something that would be an even bigger sexual scandal than looking at porn. At the youth group meeting that Owen is leading for the first time, he makes the group members lie down on their backs and meditate. Most of the group members think this meditation method is bizarre, but Jem is intrigued and can see that Owen isn’t a traditional youth pastor.

Jem’s attraction to Owen deepens when the dance group’s adult leader Mrs. Baker quits, and Owen is the one who gets to decide what to do about it. Jem confidently pitches herself to be the group leader until an adult can be found to replace Mrs. Baker. Owen agrees to this idea because he likes Jem and thinks she’s a talented dancer.

Owen also knows that this decision will make Jem like him even more and be more loyal to him. Owen feels that most of the teens in the youth group don’t really like him because they think Owen is “different” and maybe too liberal. Jem also feels a little bit like an “outsider” in this community. Just like Owen, Jem thinks there are certain traditions in the community that she doesn’t necessarily want to follow.

Jem and Owen start to spend some more time alone together, and the attraction becomes mutual. Eventually, Owen and Jem open up to each other about their personal lives. Owen tells Jem that he’s miserable in his marriage to Misty, who wants to start a family with Owen, but Owen tells Jem that he doesn’t want to have kids with Misty. Owen says his dream would be to go back to Puerto Rico and start a farm. Jem has vague plans to possibly become a dance teacher after she graduates from high school.

Just as things are looking up for Jem as leader of the dance group and finding a new “friend” in Owen, her life at home starts to experience some turmoil. The day that Jem finds out that she’s going to lead the dance group, she comes home and accidentally walks in on her father sitting naked on his bed and snorting an unknown powder that was on his hand. Horrified and in shock, Jem quickly leaves the room and doesn’t say anything to anyone about what she saw.

It’s eventually revealed that before Paul got married and had a family, he used to have a wild life as a substance-abusing musician in a country/rock band named The Deadbeats, which didn’t make it past the level of playing bars and nightclubs. Paul recently found out that one of his former band mates committed suicide. And this news sends Paul on a downward spiral and relapse into secretive drinking and drugging. Heidi knows about Paul’s past, and it’s implied that she was the one who convinced him to become a sober, born-again Christian.

The rest of “The Starling Girl” shows the drama that happens in Jem’s family life, her new leadership role for the dance group, and the growing attraction between Jem and Owen. In Kentucky, 16 years old is the minimum age of consent for people to have sexual relations. What happens between Jem and Owen is no surprise. But the last third of “The Starling Girl” does have a few surprises that look authentic and not overly contrived for a movie.

Scanlen is absolutely fantastic in how she depicts a teenager feeling trapped while transitioning into adulthood. Jem goes through a sexual awakening that both fascinates and frightens her. Jem uses some of her feminine charms to get her way, but she also experiences the harsh realities of living in a sexist community that treats women and girls as inferior to men and boys. It’s a community that is quick to shame and blame women and teenage girls for the same things that men and teenage boys can often do without punishment.

One of the best things about “The Starling Girl” is how the cast members (especially Scanlen) express emotions without saying a word. It’s an essential reason why so much of this movie looks realistic in showing people who are living lives of quietly desperate repression. So much is left unsaid or denied by these characters, but their facial expressions and body language tell the real story.

“The Starling Girl” writer/director Parmet has accomplished a tricky feat of crafting a story that is specific yet universal. This gem of a movie is more than just about a teenage girl who wants to break free of her strict, religious environment. It’s about summoning the courage to be yourself, even if it means going through painful experiences of finding out who you really are. The ending of “The Starling Girl” won’t satisfy some viewers who want more answers, but the movie has a clear message that finding some kind of happiness in life is what you make of it.

Bleecker Street released “The Starling Girl” in select U.S. cinemas on May 12, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on May 19, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 11, 2023.

Review: ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ starring Tom Cruise

May 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Top Gun: Maverick”

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Culture Representation: Taking place in California, the action film “Top Gun: Maverick” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: U.S. Navy Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell returns to the TOPGUN aviator program, where he reluctantly becomes an instructor for new recruits, including a man who blames Maverick for damaging his career and causing his father’s death.

Culture Audience: “Top Gun: Maverick” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Tom Cruise, 1986’s “Top Gun” and any formulaic action sequel that is a virtual copy of its predecessor.

Jennifer Connelly and Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Top Gun: Maverick” is an uninspired, outdated retread of 1986’s “Top Gun,” but with more implausible scenarios and with no women in military leadership positions. Even the original songs in this sequel are forgettable. While “Top Gun: Maverick” has more racial diversity than the first “Top Gun” movie, the people of color in the movie are still relegated to “sidekick” and forgettable roles. “Top Gun: Maverick” makes the same mistake that a lot of sequels do: Copying the same plot as the first movie without improving it.

What makes this mistake less acceptable is that “Top Gun: Maverick” has arrived 36 years after the release of the first “Top Gun” movie. That’s plenty of time to think up ways to take the movie in innovative and clever directions. (By contrast, Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” movie franchise keeps things fresh with stories and action scenes that are unique to each movie.) Directed by Joseph Kosinski, “Top Gun: Maverick” was originally supposed to be released in 2019, but it was delayed multiple times because of post-production issues, the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons. The movie was filmed before the pandemic.

A sequel should have familiar elements of its predecessor. It doesn’t mean that a sequel should rehash a predecessor’s plot. Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie wrote the formulaic and disappointing screenplay for “Top Gun: Maverick,” which essentially regurgitates the same story in “Top Gun.”

Both movies are about the U.S. Navy’s Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego. This elite school is nicknamed TOPGUN. Both movies are about a hotshot young TOPGUN school airplane pilot clashing with an arrogant rival classmate while being haunted by the death of a loved one and facing a big challenge in the training program.

In “Top Gun,” Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell character (played by Tom Cruise) was the hotshot student. In “Top Gun: Maverick,” he’s the main TOPGUN instructor, who has to teach his group of TOPGUN graduates how to fight in a secretive government mission targeting an unsanctioned uranium nuclear plant. In a case of history repeating itself, “Top Gun: Maverick” also has a funeral scene when someone close to Maverick dies.

Eddie Murphy’s horrible 2021 comedy Coming 2 America (the long-awaited sequel to 1988’s “Coming to America”) made the same mistake of lazily copying the same basic plot of its predecessor and trying to make the story look new by introducing a younger generation of new characters. “Coming 2 America” had even worse results, because of the movie’s awful racism and sexism, including making a joke out of an African American woman getting pregnant after she drugged and raped a man. “Top Gun: Maverick” isn’t as offensively bad as “Coming 2 America,” but the movie still has a “stuck in the 1980s” mindset that looks out of place in a movie that’s supposed to take place in the 21st century.

The first “Top Gun” movie (directed by Tony Scott, who died in 2012, at the age of 68) had only two or three people of color in the entire movie. They were African American men who were mostly put in the background. Only one of the African American men was allowed to speak in the movie, and he was literally given just two minor sentences to say. “Top Gun” was written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr.

To its credit, “Top Gun: Maverick” has a lot more racial diversity in its cast. There are some African American and Latino characters who say more than a few sentences, but their personalities are very hollow and generic. Needless to say, the people of color in “Top Gun” Maverick” do not get backstories or a significant storyline in the movie.

“Top Gun: Maverick” also falters in its depiction of women, who are once again made into token characters. But in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the depiction of the women goes in a backwards direction, because there are no women shown in positions of power in the U.S. miliary or in the TOPGUN training program. Women have come a long way in the U.S. military since 1986, but you’d never know it from watching “Top Gun: Maverick,” which puts only men in military leadership positions.

At least in “Top Gun,” one of the main characters was an intelligent woman in a position of power, even though she was still a token: Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood (played by Kelly McGillis), a civilian and an astrophysicist, who was an instructor in the TOPGUN program. Charlie and Maverick became romantically involved with each other. The movie realistically shows that Charlie was conflicted about this relationship because of how it might compromise her professional judgment and reputation. McGillis shared top billing with Cruise in “Top Gun.” In “Top Gun: Maverick,” Cruise is one of the movie’s producers, and he’s the only star who gets top billing.

The only other woman in “Top Gun” who had a significant speaking role (but got a lot less screen time than Charlie) was bubbly and outgoing Carole Bradshaw (played by Meg Ryan), the wife of Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (played by Anthony Edwards), who was Maverick’s best friend and Radar Intercept Officer, also known as a “wingman.” Carole and Goose have a son, who’s about 5 or 6 years old in the movie. In “Top Gun,” Goose died in a tragic accident during a training session with Maverick as the pilot. Maverick was cleared of any wrongdoing, but he’s been guilt-ridden about Goose’s death ever since.

Charlie and Carole are not in “Top Gun: Maverick” because these female characters weren’t even considered for this sequel, according to interviews that director Kosinski has given about the movie. Charlie is not mentioned in “Top Gun: Maverick.” Carole is briefly mentioned because she’s dead, having passed away for an untold number of years before this story takes place. In other words, the “Top Gun: Maverick” filmmakers killed off the Carole Bradshaw character.

In “Top Gun: Maverick,” the son of Goose and Carole is all grown up now. And just like his father, he’s a U.S. Navy lieutenant who’s now a trainee in the TOPGUN program. His name is Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (played by Miles Teller), and he’s got a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove because he’s living in the shadow of his dead father, who was considered a military hero. If those “daddy issues” sound familiar, it’s exactly what Maverick was going through when he went through the TOPGUN training program. Maverick’s high-ranking U.S. Navy father was on a top-secret government mission when he went missing and is presumed dead.

Rooster knows that Maverick was not responsible for Goose’s death, but Rooster still has hard feelings toward Maverick over his father’s untimely passing. Rooster also resents Maverick because Maverick blocked Rooster from getting into the U.S. Naval Academy. Unbeknownst to Rooster, Maverick did so at the request of Rooster’s mother Carole, who didn’t want Rooster to be in the military. It was only after Carole died that Rooster was able to enroll in the U.S. Naval Academy.

In the beginning of “Top Gun: Maverick,” Maverick still has the ranking of captain. It’s explained that he has not been promoted for all these years because he has a tendency to be rebellious and reckless. However, the U.S. Navy has kept him on as a test pilot because of his extraordinary pilot skills. It’s mentioned in the movie that’s he’s the only pilot in the U.S. Navy to shoot down 30 enemy planes.

Maverick is considered a dinosaur relic from a bygone era by several high-ranking people in the U.S. Navy. Some of those people think he needs to be honorably discharged, but Maverick loves his military job too much to leave, and he is being protected by Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (played by Val Kilmer), who has a small supporting role in “Top Gun: Maverick.” As shown in the first “Top Gun” movie, Iceman (also played by Kilmer) was Maverick’s biggest rival in the TOPGUN program. However, they eventually became friends with deep respect for each other.

In California’s Mohave Desert, Maverick is part of a program that is being shut down because it hasn’t met Mach 10 standards. Rear Admiral Chester “Hammer” Cain (played by Ed Harris) is coming to the naval base for the official cancellation of the program. To embarrass him, Maverick takes a plane in the air, and not only hits the Mach 10 target, but he also exceeds it. But by doing so, he ends up flaming out, but how Maverick lands the plane is never shown. All that’s shown is that he comes back looking dirty and disheveled, without any injuries.

This unauthorized use of a military plane for a showoff stunt would be grounds for serious disciplinary action in the real world. But in this make-believe world where Maverick is supposed to be a roguish hero, time and time again, he gets let off the hook for his flagrant insubordination. Hammer tells Maverick with begrudging respect, “You’ve got some balls, stick jockey. I’ll give you that.” Get used to hokey dialogue like this in “Top Gun: Maverick,” because the movie is full of it.

Now that Maverick’s program has been shuttered, he’s been assigned to do something he doesn’t want to do: Go back to the TOPGUN program in San Diego to be an instructor. Maverick is one of those people who believes in that old saying, “Those who can’t do, teach.” In other words, he thinks this teaching job is for someone who’s a has-been or a never-was, who doesn’t have what it takes to currently be a pilot.

Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (played by Jon Hamm) is one of the Navy officials who is gunning for Maverick to leave the Navy. He even says as much, when he tells Maverick: “The future is coming, and you’re not in it.” Cyclone has a sidekick named Admiral Solomon “Warlock” Bates (played by Charles Parnell), who doesn’t do much but be in the same room as Cyclone and go along with almost everything that Cyclone says. However, Warlock has a few moments where he shows that he’s really rooting for Maverick. The same goes for Warrant Officer-1 Bernie “Hondo” Coleman (played by Bashir Salahuddin), who makes some bland wisecracks during the movie.

Maverick has to choose six of his 12 students to go on the secret mission to disable the uranium plant, which is set to activate in about three weeks. Predictably, Rooster and Maverick clash with each other. At one point, Rooster yells at Maverick: “My dad believed in you. I’m not going to make the same mistake!”

More than once in the movie, Maverick tells his trainees to ignore what they were taught in the Navy’s rulebook, and he says some variation of “Don’t think, just do” He expects them to not overthink things and to trust their instincts. Of course, in Maverick’s lectures about not following what authority figures say, he thinks he’s the exception, because he wants to be the only authority figure who must be obeyed in this program.

In addition to Rooster, the other students in the program include Rooster’s smirking, cocky rival Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin (played by Glen Powell), whose personality is a virtual replica of how Iceman was in the first “Top Gun” movie. Hangman tries to find emotional weakness in Rooster to have a competitive advantage. When Hangman discovers Rooster’s “daddy issues” and why Rooster has tensions with Maverick, it leads to the inevitable fist fight between Hangman and Rooster.

The token woman in this group of chosen trainees is Lieutenant Natasha “Phoenix”
Trace (played by Monica Barbaro), who doesn’t have much of a personality, except trying to fit in with the guys. Lieutenant Robert “Bob” Floyd (played by Lewis Pullman) has the role of the nerd who’s somewhat of social outcast in this competitive group. Bob gets teased because he hasn’t thought up a flashy nickname, also known as a call sign, like all the other TOPGUN aviators.

The other trainees do not have distinguishable personalities and are given very trite dialogue. They include Lieutenant Reuben “Payback” Fitch (played by Jay Ellis); Lieutenant Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia (played by Danny Ramirez); and Lt. Javy “Coyote” Machado (played by Greg Tarzan Davis). Most viewers of “Top Gun: Maverick” will have a hard time remembering these three characters’ names and what they said by the time the movie is over.

Unlike the first “Top Gun” movie, which showed the male trainees carousing at bars and trying to pick up women, the trainees in “Top Gun” are a much tamer crew. When they go to a bar, they gather around a piano and sing Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” with Rooster playing the piano. Maverick sees this camaraderie, and it triggers him to have a flashback memory to when he, Goose and other TOPGUN trainees did the same thing, with Goose’s young son sitting nearby for the sing-along. (This scene from “Top Gun” is shown as a flashback.)

Speaking of bars where these TOPGUN people hang out, the main bar they go to is The Hard Deck aviators’ club. It just happens to be owned and bartended by Penny Benjamin (played by Jennifer Connelly), who is the daughter of a U.S. Navy admiral. Penny was briefly mentioned, but never seen, in the first “Top Gun” movie as one of the many conquests whom ladies’ man Maverick got sexually involved with and then dumped.

Penny is now a divorced mother to a daughter named Amelia Benjamin (played by Lyliana Wray), who’s about 13 or 14 years old. Penny’s ex-husband, who is never seen in “Top Gun: Maverick,” has remarried and is living in Hawaii. It’s implied that never-married bachelor Maverick and Penny have had an on-again/off-again relationship, where Maverick left her heartbroken because he ended things with her every time. When Penny sees Maverick again all these years later, she predictably gives him a hard time for breaking up with her.

But just as predictably, she eventually lets him back into her life, and they rekindle their romance. Maverick and Penny look good together as a couple, but they don’t generate as much romantic heat as Maverick had with Charlie. Although Penny is a business owner, her role is essentially to be a generic love interest who follows Maverick’s lead when he courts her and succeeds in winning a place back into her heart.

Penny initially wants to keep this rekindled romance a secret from her daughter Amelia, who inevitably finds out anyway. Even after it’s no longer a secret, Maverick doesn’t spend any quality time with Amelia, which he would care about doing if he’s serious about a relationship with Penny. That’s why Maverick’s level of commitment to Penny is questionable, no matter how many “romantic” scenes are shown of Penny riding with Maverick on the back of his motorcycle. This scenario of Maverick giving his love interest a motorcycle ride is also recycled from the first “Top Gun” movie.

“Top Gun: Maverick” delivers when it comes to the airplane action scenes (with the F/A-18 being the airplane of choice), but too much of the movie is tediously predictable recycling of plot points and scenes from the first “Top Gun” movie. The scene of Maverick on a motorcycle while playfully racing a soaring fighter plane is recreated. It’s in the movie for pure nostalgia reasons for people who saw the first “Top Gun” movie.

Another recycled scene takes place at a beach where the TOPGUN aviators are playing a sports game together in their free time. In “Top Gun,” it was volleyball. In “Top Gun: Maverick,” it’s touch football. This beach frolicking scene only seems to be in the movie so that Cruise and the other men can be shirtless and show off their toned physiques. Even the closing credits scene is styled exactly like the first “Top Gun” movie.

One of the highlights of “Top Gun: Maverick” is a poignant scene between Maverick and Iceman, who is battling throat cancer, just Kilmer is in real life. However, “Top Gun: Maverick” ends up being marred by too many unrealistic scenarios. There’s even more disregard of real-life U.S. military protocol than what was in the first “Top Gun” movie. Maverick does things that would get him dishonorably discharged in the real world—but of course he doesn’t get discharged, because this is a Tom Cruise movie. And the ending of “Top Gun: Maverick” is even more cornball than the ending of the first “Top Gun” movie.

The “Top Gun” soundtrack was the biggest-selling soundtrack of 1986. And it’s easy to know why. People who’ve seen the first “Top Gun” movie know how the music was used to great effect. Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” song fueled a high-energy scene early in the movie. Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” memorably played during a romantic scene between Charlie and Maverick on the night that they became lovers. Those two signature “Top Gun” songs were instant classics that stayed in viewers’ minds long after seeing the movie. Although “Top Gun” got some criticism for being filmed almost like a music video, there’s no denying that the movie’s music was one of its biggest assets.

Unfortunately, “Top Gun: Maverick” has an utterly mediocre soundtrack, with songs that have been used in many other movies, such as Foghat’s “Slow Ride” and T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On).” There’s nothing wrong with these tunes, but they’re overplayed in too many other places. And because “Top Gun: Maverick” is a movie of rehashes, “Danger Zone” also makes a reappearance. The original soundtrack songs on “Top Gun: Maverick,” such as Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand,” won’t be winning any Oscars, like Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.”

Viewers who will enjoy “Top Gun” the most are those who want to see a superficial recreation of the first “Top Gun” movie. But for other people who know that “Top Gun: Maverick” could have been a lot better, the movie falls short in coming up with any major story arc that would be truly original and daring for this sequel. The performances in “Top Gun Maverick” aren’t terrible, but they aren’t that special either. In the end, “Top Gun: Maverick,” just like its main character, is stuck in a rut of reliving past glories, and ends up having more swagger and posturing than any real substance.

Paramount Pictures will release “Top Gun: Maverick” in U.S. cinemas on May 27, 2022.