And I’ll be honest, I had every intention of seeing Maverick at a commercial theater—apparently the way Tom Cruise, Jerry Bruckheimer, and God intended—but after my lackluster experience seeing The Batman in a theater here in Myrtle Beach, with subpar black levels and anemic audio, I decided I’d just hold off until the home release where I could enjoy it in the full 7.3.6 Trinnov Audio-processed 4K HDR splendor of my home theater. And, boy, was it worth the wait! Seeing Cruise’s cocky Maverick swagger up on screen again was just fun. 

Maverick is like a master class in how to make a blockbuster sequel. The casting and acting are great, the cinematography is fantastic, the plot is simple but compelling, and the action is fast-paced and (mostly) believable. It also totally understands exactly how to employ fan service. Remember, it’s been 36 years since Maverick (Cruise) jumped in his F-14 and shot down all those MiGs, and Ice Man (Val Kilmer) said he could be his wingman any day. Maverick employs so many cool callbacks, beats, and nods to the original film, you can’t help but revel in the nostalgia of it and smile at the warm fuzzies. But at the same time, you don’t have to be a fan of the original to enjoy Maverick. It serves up just enough backstory and exposition on Cruise’s character for you to understand who he is, even if you don’t already know.

The film picks up 30 years after the first, but the opening will immediately take you back to the original film, with the same text, music, and even Kenny Loggins taking you to the “Danger Zone.” Maverick is still in the Navy but due to his, err, maverick ways, has only managed to achieve the rank of Captain. His career has been somewhat protected by his friend—now Admiral—Ice Man, and he is now a Navy test pilot for experimental planes, but due to his unique real-world dogfighting experience, he is ordered back to TOPGUN to select and train a group of former graduates to execute the attack on this nuclear facility. Among the students is Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), son of Maverick’s former RIO (Radio Intercept Officer) “Goose” (Anthony Edwards). Jon Hamm plays Maverick’s new skeptical “boss” Admiral “Cyclone” Simpson, using his Mad Men sneer and contempt to perfection, and Ed Harris gives a brief but quintessential Ed Harris performance as Rear Admiral “Hammer” Cain. Maverick’s love interest this time around is Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), who was name-dropped in a throwaway line during the first film but who helps to round out Maverick’s character. 

Maverick also does a terrific job of staying in its lane and knowing what it is. It doesn’t try and get overly complicated or introduce side and sub plots. Someone else compared the film to a Star Wars movie that was just about the Death Star trench run, watching the Rebels assemble a team to make the strike, then watching them train over and over to make the strike, then making the strike, and then escaping. Turn Luke Skywalker into Maverick, turn X-wing fighters into F/A-18s, turn the Death Star into a hostile enemy nation trying to bring a nuclear enrichment plant on line, turn proton torpedoes into laser-guided bombs, and turn the ill-designed exhaust port into a, well, I think they even call it a “port.” 

Shot on 6K and taken from a 4K digital intermediate, Maverick looks fantastic throughout. One thing you’ll either love or hate is that the image switches pretty regularly between 2.39:1 widescreen and 1.90:1 IMAX aspect ratios. Now, if you own a widescreen front-projection system, you’ll likely not love this choice. But if you have a traditional 16:9 aspect-ratio TV, what you’ll notice is that the screen fills vertically—gets larger—during the IMAX scenes which are nearly all when they are flying. Usually I’m not a fan of these changing ratios but the IMAX footage just looks so good and the footage is so exciting, it really does pull you into the action. 

With far more access and cooperation from the US Navy—and paying the Navy $11,374 per flight hour for actual F/A-18’s and Naval aviators—along with the aforementioned suite of in-cockpit IMAX-certified cameras, Maverick features some of the best aerial filming ever. When an actor is performing some intense maneuver, you see the strain and effort on his face and body because they’re actually in the seat feeling the effects of those G forces. And this adds immeasurably to the realism and intensity of the moment and the scenes. You really get a sense of whipping through a canyon doing a low-level bombing run at 600 knots, and it’s exhilarating. 

Images are sharp, clean, and clear, and while I wouldn’t say that the 2.39:1 images had that hyper-detailed overly crisp “digital” look, they instead looked like the best of what a great film transfer can deliver, without any of the grain but still providing plenty of fine detail like the gold braid in Maverick’s uniform hat or the pattern in Ice Man’s ascot/scarf. The IMAX footage is often closeups, and you can see every line, whisker, and pore in the actors’ faces. The HDR grade delivers natural-looking images, and bright, punchy colors in the pilots’ helmets, the blue lighting in the aircraft carrier’s combat information center, the flashes of sunlight, or the gleam of sweat on faces. 

The Dolby TrueHD Atmos soundtrack on the Kaleidescape download sounds fantastic, with the thunder and roar of F/A-18 engines as they fire up producing bass that hits you in the chest. There are loads of overhead flyovers, with the sound of wind racing and ripping past on all sides or planes flying past and out into the back or sides of the room. Even in the non-flying scenes, there are the backgrounds sounds of jets flying around the air base off in the distance or using the overhead speakers for Mav’s voice talking to a ground station. There were a few moments where understanding dialogue was a bit challenging, when pilots are flying/dogfighting with jet engines shrieking, music playing, and they are speaking under the literal stress of flight behind oxygen masks. 

Top Gun: Maverick plays terrifically in a luxury home theater. It looks and sounds great, is a near-guaranteed crowd pleaser for your next get-together, and has great replay value. In fact, I already can’t wait to watch it again, and it will likely have heavy rotation in your theater’s demo showoff reel! It is available now from Kaleidescape and other digital retailers—a full two-months before its November 1 disc release—making this a total no-brainer to recommend.