Released on May 25, 2022, Top Gun: Maverick is “the” film that made audiences want to go to theaters again after the health crisis. A feat hailed with a thunderous “You saved Hollywood’s ass”, launched by Steven Spielberg at the Oscars dinner on February 14, to the attention of the producer and hero of the film, Tom Cruise.

So the question is why? Why, even in France, where the name of the actor is above all associated with Scientology, this sequel to 1986’s Top Gun exceeded 6 million admissions in three months?

Author of the documentary, Ambre Chalumeau provides a professional and cheerful response, dissecting “the Tom Cruise system” in several acts: stunts, physique, look, “loss of lead” – during the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2005, on the set from Mission Impossible 7 during the pandemic… – and Scientology. With the touch of polite fantasy that has made her successful in “Quotidien”, the TMC magazine in which the young journalist has been presenting a culture column since the start of the 2020 school year.

“Cinephilic Orgasm”

Coppola, Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Scorsese, Michael Mann, Oliver Stone… Tom Cruise’s filmography is called “crazy”. It even provides “a cinephilic orgasm” to Geoffrey Crété, editor-in-chief of Ecran large, which is particularly interesting throughout the film, as is ?Thomas Croisière, film columnist. They agree that his success is down to a formula: “It looks real because it’s real”. Jumping from an airliner, piloting a cuckoo, clinging to a TGV launched at 300 km/h (incredible scene): like Jean-Paul Belmondo in his time, Tom Cruise does the stunts himself.

Film excerpts and interviews are punctuated by interventions in which Ambre Chalumeau stages herself. To name just one, she’s doing a stunt from Mission: Impossible 1. It’s fun. Above all, it opens the doors to the school of stuntmen trained by Jérôme Gaspard, who reveals behind the scenes of the filming of the “motorcycle jump” which is already a cult moment in Mission impossible 7, which is scheduled for release on July 12.

We will also remember the actor’s career choices deciphered by screenwriter Julie-Anna Grignon; the shirt, briefs and sock scene from Risky Business (1983); the memories of Lorraine Gauly Amie, the high school friend of Thomas C. Mapother (birth name of the comedian)…

Tom Cruise is 60 years old today. At the start of Top Gun: Maverick, he clashes with his colonel, who predicts a future where planes no longer need a pilot, and therefore him, to fly. “Maybe,” he replies, “but not yet. A Mission Impossible 8 is announced in 2024, and Edge of Tomorrow 2 in 2025.