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Top Gun 2: Maverick — Tom Cruise Spotted Filming in San Diego

We haven’t lost that lovin’ feeling.

Not only has a street in Miramar — the naval base area in San Diego — been re-named “Top Gun Street” (I’ve seen it myself and hope to get you a photo soon), but sightings are being reported all over the city with Tom Cruise himself popping up. He’s been seen riding a motorcycle on our freeways. There’s a photo circulating online, with Cruise facing into the California sunset, iconic “Maverick” helmet in hand. Local bars are even starting to offer Top Gun based drink specials to San Diego patrons. Expect more jukeboxes to play the original Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and karaoke nights picking up the song, as we get closer to the film release date that’s been pushed back to 2020.

Also to reprise their roles: Val Kilmer as Iceman, Goose’s (grown up) son, and probably a few surprise cameos. Release details are still kept mostly under wraps. Here’s what’s known now.

This is nice for us San Diego peeps, revitalizing the Miramar area economy. [pullquote]People  are getting revved up for the long-awaited sequel to Cruise’s seminal naval pilot story from almost 30 years ago. [/pullquote](Yikes, from 1986! The year I graduated high school…old much?)

At the denouement of the classic Top Gun film, Maverick didn’t win the hot-shot top spot, but his skill, valor, and stick-to-it-ness, plus a hard-won more-mature attitude, won him a coveted field instructor promotion at the elite naval air academy —  where the “best of the best” flyboys get an annual shot in training to become the number one dogfighting pilot in the nation. Expect the story to pick up with Cruise’s character teaching new, young idiots “living dangerously” in crazy dog fights against today’s bogies.

Maybe some females, like Battlestar Galactica‘s Starbuck (from the modern Ron Moore remake) will even be up for the top spots these days. Why not? I’d bet on this.

Excited yet? With the new A+ Mission Impossible: Fallen movie proving that Cruise is STILL the box office man to beat, expect the Top Gun sequel to excite, amuse, and maybe kick-start a new breed of younguns to strive for greatness.

Get that need for speed rewatching the amusing bar bet scene, including “That Lovin’ Feeling,” sung by Mav, Goose, and seemingly the entire flight school. 

Here’s the Top Gun Anthem tune, opening the iconic film:

Lastly, enjoy some “top” moments from the 1986 Top Gun:

I used the music from “The Top Gun Anthem,” plus “Highway to the Danger Zone” on the GoPro video documenting my own insanely fun plane jump in San Diego, to celebrate turning 50. I’m even inspired to write that up for you (link to follow soon). If you get the chance to jump from a plane and fly, DO IT! Nothing else is scary in life after you somersault out of a plane on purpose. Did it rock? In a word, YES. Would I do a HALO jump?…yeah, I would.

Damn, I forgot how great the entire soundtrack is from Top Gun. Sit back, play it, and let the memories wash over you. If you’re a Millennial, catch the 80s film right now. It really holds up. And Goose is one of the greatest characters ever. I will say no more.

Related on RunPee.com:

Mission Impossible: Fallout — Movie Review

Tom Cruise Does His Own Stratospheric, Low Opening Jumps for MI: Fallout

Tom Cruise Breaks Ankle Filming Mission Impossible, Keeps Filming

 

 

 

 

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Fantastic Theme Music from the Entire Mission Impossible Franchise

Tom Cruise dominates the series now, but it did run from 1966-1973 on television, and in syndication, long before Cruise started breaking his legs and doing stratospheric plane jumps in the movie franchise. I remember watching this long ago, at the edge of memory, with my mother, and humming the theme with the spark burning through the ubiquitious bomb’s fuse.

The music theme has stayed surprisingly familiar all long. Enjoy this musical Mission: Impossible trip from last generation to today. You can’t not bop along. I dare you to try. That’s your mission, should you choose to accept it.

The very first version: Mission Impossible, the TV Series Theme Song (1966)

Original MI (movie version) Opening Song (1996)

M:I 2 (2000)

And the M:I 2 theme song (2000)

MI: Ghost Protocol (2011)

MI: Rogue Nation (2015)

Mission Impossible: Fallout — Friction by Imagine Dragons (2018)

Tom Cruise Broke Ankle in MI: Fallout Stunt – and kept filming

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Cruise’s HALO MI Dives: 106 jumps at 25,000 feet, w/broken ankle

Cruise adapted a helmet so we could even see his face during the drops!

Tom Cruise broke his ankle mid-stunt, leaping from one roof to another. He pulled off the painful, complicated  move, landed a bit funny, and kept on filming. We cover that here. The foot looks a little gruesome in the side video — take a look. Feet don’t work that way.

So, what’s the perfect way to heal?

How about doing 106 insane High Altitude Low Open skydives while waiting for your ankle to knit?

Also known as HALOs — dives in which you in which you open your parachute at a low altitude, after stratospheric entry — Cruise discusses, at length, his unusual drop into Paris for Mission Impossible: Fallout. This detailed article covers what it took to make this scene a reality, in his latest (and some say best) Mission Impossible blockbuster hit.

Here’s the official featurette of Cruise’s HALO dive experience: 

Related:

Tom Cruise breaks ankle against a wall filming Mission Impossible: Fallout, and kept filming

Mission Impossible alum Jeremy Renner breaks both arms filming stunt for movie TAG, and keeps on acting (He really IS Hawkeye)

Movie Review – Mission Impossible: Fallout

Movie Review – Tag

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Tom Cruise Broke Ankle in MI: Fallout Stunt – and kept filming

He does his own stunts…and sometimes gets ouchies.

What is it about actors doing their own stunts, and especially actor alum from the Mission Impossible franchise?

Tom Cruise is known for doing some crazy maneuvers in his films. [pullquote]There’s a scene in Mission Impossible: Fallout where Cruise keeps on running with a broken ankle, so the cast could wrap up filming and go home.[/pullquote]

Jeremy Renner, who also stars in the Mission Impossible franchise as an unbreakable spy, followed through one of his scenes with TWO broken arms that had to be CGIed in, after filming his chair-surfing stunt in the hit comedy Tag. (We wrote that up here.)

Hats off to these actors. (Or maybe they need a thump on the head.) 🙂

This is the scene Cruise runs around with a broken ankle. You can see him limping as he pulls himself up and keeps on filming: 

Cruise’s stunt was actually performed correctly…he was supposed to miss that wall. But he still landed wrong.  In the side take, you can see the weird and somewhat gruesome angle of his foot against the wall. Feet don’t normally look like that.

A more in-depth interview with Graham Norton on how Cruise broke his ankle in Mission Impossible: Fallout, while the audience cringes (it’s funny):

It’s nice to have a stunt person take on the option of broken and mangled body parts, but there’s a certain cachet to doing your own stuntwork. Cruise and Renner are like real-life superheroes! Renner, as Hawkeye, does play one in the Avengers films. Which makes me wonder – when will Cruise get his own role in a Marvel film?

Related, On RunPee: 

Cruise’s HALO MI Dives: 106 jumps at 25,000 feet, w/broken ankle

Jeremy Renner Might Really Be Hawkeye: Films with Two Broken Arms in Tag

Movie Review for Mission Impossible: Fallout

Movie Review for Tag

Character Relations Map for MI:Fallout

Entire Franchise Theme Music From Mission Impossible — Including the Classic TV Series

 

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Movie Review – Mission Impossible Fallout

I re-watched the previous Mission Impossible movie — Rogue Nation — last night, and boy am I glad I did. MI: Fallout follows closely on the heels of the previous movie and if you, like me, haven’t watched it recently, you might want to give it a re-watch before heading out to see the sequel. If you don’t have time, you can read my What you need to know before seeing MI: Fallout article that will refresh your memory about the key elements from the previous movie.

In my review for MI: Rogue Nation I gave it an “A,” and it’s hard to find a meaningful difference between the two. In many respects these two movies are just one long movie, with a three year intermission.

If there’s one glaring difference between the two films, it’s that Jeremy Renner, who played William Brandt in the previous two MI movies, isn’t seen or mentioned in Fallout.  (Find out why.) The space for a new character is taken up by Henry Cavill (a.k.a. Superman) who fills a similar role on the team, that being an equal to an Ethan who can oppose his ideas…but Cavill’s character doesn’t come close to providing the same levity. (Not the actor’s fault. The character just isn’t written that way.)

The twists and turns of plot in this movie require a lot more attention. We should all pity those moviegoers who don’t have the RunPee app, and get up between the 2nd and 3rd Peetime. They’ll come back and be completely baffled.

Grade: A

Peetimes:
We have 4 Peetimes, 2 of which are recommended.

Personally, I’d suggest the 3rd Peetime. It’s one long scene that continues well after the Peetime ends. You won’t miss anything important, just some running,  and a bit of mild humor.

 

Related:

Why Hawkeye, I mean Jeremy Renner, isn’t in MI: Fallout

Character Relations Map for Mission Impossible: Fallout

Summary – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Tom Cruise Breaks Ankle Filming MI Stunt – and Keeps Running

Cruise Jumps 106 Times in a HALO Skydive on Broken Ankle for Mission Impossible: Fallout

 

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What you need to remember about MI: Rogue Nation

Solomon Lane: Former MI6 agent and now head of *The Syndicate*

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is determined to prove the existence of the Syndicate, a criminal consortium the CIA does not believe exists. Ethan is captured by the Syndicate at a record shop in London, while their leader, a blond man in glasses, kills the IMF agent stationed there.

 

Rebecca Ferguson: undercover MI6 agent Ilsa Faust.

Ethan escapes a torture chamber with the help of disavowed MI6 agent and Syndicate operative Ilsa Faust.

 

 

Alec Baldwin: CIA/IMF Director Alan Hunley

Back in Washington, D.C., CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) testifies before a Senate committee charging that the IMF is destructive. Hunley succeeds in having the IMF disbanded and absorbed into the CIA.

Cut off from the IMF, Ethan follows his only lead: the man in glasses, later identified as former MI6 agent Solomon Lane.

Simon Pegg: tech guy on Ethan Hunt’s team.

Six months later, Ethan enlists former colleague Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to attend an opera in Vienna, predicting that an assassination attempt will be made on the Austrian Chancellor. Ethan and Benji stop two snipers,  and meet Ilsa who is also there to kill the Chancellor, but her loyalties are… complicated. (She’s sent by MI6 to infiltrate the  Syndicate.) Ethan and Ilsa escape the opera house together, believing they have saved the Chancellor, but he is killed by a car bomb, and Lane is still not found.

Ilsa convinces Ethan that she has to stay undercover and jumps out of the car, pretending that Ethan captured her but she got away, so that the Syndicate agents will pick her up and return her to Lane.

Benji stays with Ethan instead of reporting back to the CIA, despite knowing his action amounts to treason.

Ving Rhames: Ethan’s loyal friend and tech guy.

Ethan, blamed for the Chancellor’s death, is pursued by the CIA’s Special Activities Division. Former IMF teammate William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), who now works with the CIA, contacts Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) to find Ethan before the CIA does. Luther tracks Ethan, Benji, and Ilsa to Casablanca, where they acquire a secret file from a secure building. Ethan drowns during the mission, but Ilsa rescues him and uses a heart defibrillator to resuscitate him. Ilsa then flees with the data, evading both Ethan and Syndicate members, although Ethan kills the pursuing agents.

Benji reveals he copied the data onto a second USB drive, as Luther and Brandt catch up to them.

Ilsa returns to London and attempts to use the file to quit her mission to infiltrate the Syndicate, but her MI6 handler, Atlee, compels her to continue, whilst discreetly wiping her drive. Meanwhile, Ethan learns that the data is an encrypted British government red box that requires the Prime Minister’s biometrics to unlock.

Lane’s henchmen abduct Benji , and use him to blackmail Ethan into decrypting the data and delivering it to them. Ethan agrees to the ultimatum.

As part of Ethan ‘s plan, Brandt reveals their location to CIA Director Hunley. During a charity auction Hunley, Brandt, and Atlee (Ilsa’s handler) take the British PM to a secure room to protect him from Ethan. Brandt has the PM confirm the existence of the Syndicate, a project proposed by Atlee to perform missions without oversight. After the PM reveals the origin of the Syndicate to CIA Director Hunley, Atlee reveals himself as Ethan in a mask.

When the real Atlee arrives, Ethan forces him to admit that he continued with the plans to create the Syndicate without permission and that he has been covering up its existence after Lane hijacked the project and went rogue, turning the Syndicate against him and MI6.

With the PM’s biometrics, Luther discovers the file contains access to £2.4 billion in various bank accounts, which would allow the Syndicate to continue their operations unnoticed; Ethan promptly destroys the data.

Ethan meets Benji and Ilsa at an outdoor restaurant. Benji reveals that he’s wearing a suicide bomb and has an earphone so he can deliver the message from Lane.

Ethan tells Lane he destroyed the drive and memorized the data and offers himself in exchange for Benji and Ilsa. Lane is forced to deactivate the bomb and let Benji go. Ethan and Ilsa are chased through the streets of London by Lane’s men. Eventually Ethan is wounded and chased by Lane. He lures Lane into a sealed glass cell where he is gassed unconscious and taken into custody.

Hunley, having witnessed an IMF operation’s success firsthand, returns with Brandt to the Senate committee and convinces them to restore the IMF by covering for Ethan and his team. After the meeting, Brandt congratulates Hunley, who is now the new IMF Secretary.

Related:

Movie Review — Mission Impossible: Fallout

Why Hawkeye, I mean Jeremy Renner, isn’t in MI: Fallout

Character Relations Map for Mission Impossible: Fallout

Tom Cruise Breaks Ankle in MI:Fallout Stunt, Keeps Filming