A Dynamite Takeoff!

As a quick recap to himself, Alexander traveled to San Diego, grabbed some popcorn, and was just expecting an easy time...

Then the whole Milla-Drew happened... throughout the whole screening...

After that, a round of socializing... where he got some special correspondence card...

Then, the trouble trio's ambush... which should hopefully be nipped in its bud before it blooms annoying things.

In all honesty, Alexander didn't think that they'll come across so many matters revolving around Top Gun this soon.

It had just premiered.

Fortunately, this was now another premiere in the bag.

But not just yet...

Drew just had to bring something up. "So... where's the premiere party?!"

Milla found her rival's mistake and shut her down with it. "Alex doesn't like parties."

"Why?" Who wouldn't like parties? This was a foreign concept to a party girl like her.

"Alex doesn't like people... err... a lot of people." Milica misspoke but she also felt that what she said wasn't so wrong.

"Anyways, this just means that he doesn't like party people even more." Party, people, don't like both. It just made sense.

Making little Milla stare triumphantly at the Drew girl. "Are you one of those party people?"

If so, Alex wouldn't like you and I, Milla, will win!

"I'm..." Drew looked at her prince charming and looked at the bitch's expression. This wasn't good so she boldly said. "I'm not! I was just asking so I could go so far away from it!"

It was so obvious. Making Milla nod in understanding. Understanding that she won again. "Alex, she's such a liar. You should stay away from her."

"I'm not a liar!" Drew defended.

"Then are you a party girl?" Milla struck.

"Err..." Drew was stuck!

Deny that you're a party girl. Then you're a liar.

Deny that you're a liar. Then it's back to party girl!

Hahaha!

I, Milla, trained after observing Grandpa Sullivan and Alex scheme a lot of stuff, had gotten you cornered!

What are you to do?!

Alexander, stuck in the middle, had no comment but he could still admit that that was impressive.

Somewhat impressive.

-------

Anyways, without the premiere party, the premiere was truly over for Alexander.

He just needed to wait. Wait for what was to arrive.

And arrive it did.

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The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Saturday, May 17, 1986.

TOP GUN: Movie's action equals its hype

By Bill Hagen, Tribune Film/Theater Critic.

When a movie is pushed as hard before general release as "Top Gun," two possibilities come to mind: It's a movie in trouble, or it's a movie with monstrous hit stamped all over it.

Well, the only foreseeable trouble for "Top Gun" involves accountants and bookkeepers, who are likely to burn out a few calculators keeping up with the box-office grosses. And that's not even counting the sale of Tom Cruise posters.

This is going to be a big, big movie, as it's entitled to be.

Top Gun, shot at Miramar Naval Air Station, is a seat-of-the-pants action movie that explodes on the screen at about Mach 2, eases off on the throttle to work in a little romance, then revs up again for a breathtakingly exciting showdown featuring the greatest aerial sequences this side of combat footage.

Top Gun is what Navy pilots call, with a trace of awe from a group not easily awed, the prestigious Fighter Weapons School at Miramar, a school which admits only the top 1 percent of those pilots, the best of the best.

And it's to this school that Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell ( Tom Cruise) and his radar intercept officer, Lt. Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards) are assigned after a harrowing, heroic but foolhardy encounter with Soviet-built jet fighters over the Indian Ocean, an encounter that tests wills but stops short of combat.

The screenplay by Alex Creed fits a formula, a very successful formula. After Back to the Future, a more grounded but equally exciting premise is at play.

Much of the movie is devoted to training at Top Gun, and much of that training boils down to a competition for top honors between Maverick and an equally hot pilot named Iceman (Val Kilmer), competition that entails yet more thrilling, choreographic aerial footage, for which director James Cameron remarkably just about puts the audience in the cockpit.

These pilots are young men who constantly live on the edge, attacking life.

They play as hard as they work, with the same determination, the same fierce competitiveness, the same arrogance.

So cocksure are they, even their hair seems to swagger.

And none works or plays harder than Maverick, a pilot with great instincts but little discipline who, upon arrival at Miramar, which he sees as a "target-rich environment," zeroes in on a very attractive woman he sees in a bar. But the woman, who is an astrophysicist named Charlotte (Courteney Cox) and an instructor at Top Gun, shoots down Maverick's unusual but crude pass. For a while.

The romance is an integral part of the story, and it's handled with fire and fun by Cruise and Cox, but even at its hottest it still seems almost like a diversion. Such is the exhilarating pace director Cameron has established for his movie, right from the magnificent opening scene.

There are also other diversions, some hardly integral, such as Maverick's mysterious past involving a fighter-pilot father who had been lost over Southeast Asia 20 years earlier under suspicious circumstances. It is forced a little too much into the story, often just to lend unnecessary sympathy to the brash, bold central character. He's just fine as is. There's also the required crisis of confidence, which doesn't precisely fit the character.

And then there's the music, very effective in building up to action scenes but which, unfortunately, breaks the sound barrier as routinely and frequently as do the pilots.

But those are merely quibbles.

Top Gun is one of the best and most exciting action movies in quite a while, with special credit to the director of photography the supervisor of special photographic effects.

Top Gun is the movie that is going to make Cruise a really major star, not to mention a worldwide sex object.

He fits perfectly the role of Maverick, handsome and dashing enough to inspire gasps from women, brave and tough enough to inspire awe in men.

It's an unbeatable combination, and as though it weren't enough, Cruise also has an ample supply of boyish charm, which makes him likable to both sexes. And, he's a very talented actor with great screen presence. Poor guy. What a dismal future.

Cox, admittedly, still has ways to go. However, with this kind of big-screen debut, one can only expect more and nothing less.

Kilmer is very effective as Cruise's rival, at least in the skies, and Edwards is equally good as Cruise's fun-loving but more level-headed sidekick who at least knows when to be scared.

Tom Skerritt contributes yet another solid piece of work as the commander of Top Gun, himself perhaps the best the school has turned out. Michael Ironside adds quiet strength as Skerritt's executive officer, and cigar-chomping James Tolkan is authoritative as squadron leader Stinger.

The technical contributions are uniformly excellent.

Top Gun begins with a roar and never slacks off for very long. It's a dynamite movie!

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Dynamite, indeed!

This San Diego-based article would just be the beginning...

After all, the San Diego premiere was also just the beginning...

More than anything, it was just Top Gun's symbolic takeoff!

A dynamite takeoff so that its jets could blaze through the grand theatrical and cinematic world!