YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

Tencent Pictures

Top Gun: Maverick movie trailer is beautiful

by

Trailer for American film Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun. Beautiful is not the usual word to associate with action movies, but I cannot find a better term to describe this teaser video… because it is really beautiful. In cinemas in June 2020 in Malaysia and the United States etc.

Not much thought about the first movie, it was a long time ago. Regardless, the film made Tom Cruise a superstar, and he is reprising his role after more than three decades. There are actually films with longer gap between sequel, such as the Blade Runner (1982-2017)…

There’s probably no feature film that stars the same main lead with such a huge sequel-gap like Top Gun though. Tom Cruise is THE leading actor in both movies. In other cases, the main cast may return but usually in lesser roles for a sequel that comes 20-30 years after the previous one.

Top Gun: Maverick is directed by Joseph Kosinski. Besides Tom Cruise, the main cast also includes Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman and Ed Harris. Val Kilmer, who played a key part in the original movie, also returns but with a small role instead.

Not much info about the plot, it looks like Cruise is becoming a mentor for some new fighter pilots. The film is going to be a hit as long as the story isn’t too bad. The visual effect looks great, and there’s always the nostalgia factor. This trailer certainly gives it a good head start.

Kong: Skull Island movie trailer

by

Trailer for American monster movie Kong: Skull Island. It’s a reboot of the King Kong franchise and also the second instalment in Legendary’s MonsterVerse – a shared fictional universe centred on a series of monster films featuring Godzilla and King Kong (and perhaps more in the future.)

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Jing Tian, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Shea Whigham, Thomas Mann, Terry Notary and John C Reilly. In cinemas next week in Malaysia and the US etc.

I’m never a fan of King Kong. The fact that he’s always in love with a “tiny” albeit beautiful woman never makes sense to me, and that alone makes it difficult for me to like the franchise. Set that aside, the Kong in the teaser looks pretty badass. There seems to be too much going on in the preview though.

Chinese actress Jing Tian appears as a main cast on movie poster but doesn’t feature in the trailer at all. Guess it’s another pointless character just to please the Chinese market. Perhaps there will be two versions like some other recent Hollywood films, one for China and another for rest of the world.

Update – It’s a stupid but entertaining film. There are so many loopholes in the plot, which is poorly pieced together to begin with. The visual effects look great though, and the fast-paced storytelling makes some of the flaws forgivable. It’s fun for two hours but an easily forgotten movie.