Our mission at SAW is to foster conversations about this thing we all love (or love to hate): film/TV. Many of our features are designed with you in mind. Your opinions, to be more to the point. You have ’em. We want to hear ’em.
Question of the Day (QOTD) is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a film/TV-related question that we put to you, the reader. The comments section below is like the feedback box at work; except, in this example, we actually read what you write and care about what you have to say.
The Set Up
I saw Top Gun: Maverick last week. Now, if you had told me 3 months ago that I was going to go see this at the theater, I would have laughed in your face. Movies like this almost never work and end up just being a boring trip down Memberberry Lane. Well, the buzz for Maverick piqued my interest, and a light-hearted action movie sounded good at the time, so the wife and I decided to check it out.
We walked out of the theater stunned at how much fun we’d had with it.
Now, don’t get me wrong: this movie could have been called Top Gun: Memberberries, but somehow it all worked. The memberberries were fine, but this movie was so sincere in what it was trying to be that it was endearing rather than coming off as cynical.
It was just…fun.
The kind of fun where you leave your brain at the door for an hour and a half and that’s ok.
The Question of the Day
But it got me thinking: could this sort of movie work if it wasn’t loaded with nostalgia? In other words: Could an original 80s style action movie work in 2022?
To be clear here, I’m not talking about a remake or legacy sequel of something like Commando or Cobra or Black Rain—but an original story that plays the same as those kind of ridiculous 80s actions movies where a healthy suspension of disbelief is key to enjoying the film.
So what do you think? Could the cheesy 80s action movie rise again? Are audiences too sophisticated for that genre to work in this day and age or does Top Gun: Maverick prove the model is still valid?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
