Tom Cruise’s return as in new Top Gun sequel Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick ( PG, 135 mins)

Rating:

Verdict:  Supersonic!

We all know that Tom Cruise does his own stunts, but this is something else. There he is in an F-18 fighter jet, his billion-dollar face contorted by G-forces, as the whole thing roars off an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean.

The only small nod to sanity is that Cruise isn’t flying the jet himself: The US Navy wouldn’t let him.

Otherwise, everything else is real: The plane, the warship, the stomach-turning gravitational pulls. He’s actually up there in the sky going at 1,189mph as the camera rolls.

Cruise experiencing G-force in F-18 fighter jet for Top Gun: Maverick

In Top Gun: Maverick, the new sequel to the 1986 original, this kind of macho film-making isn’t just showing off. It’s the point.

Nowadays, they…