Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible, and Getting Older
Top Gun as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
As a 34 year old, I’ve of course absorbed Mission Impossible through osmosis, but honestly cannot recall watching a single edition not on tv and the entire way through (we were more of a James Bond family than an Ethan Hunt family). So image, I’m seeing MI 7 Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and there is a man walking through an office who smoke bombs a government meeting. As he approaches the conference room, I’m on high alert, watching so closely, trying to pick up all the subtly and details when the smoke-bomber whips off a mask and it’s Ethan Hunt. I GASPED and gripped my chair arms, looking frantically back and forth between L. and the screen. She’s delighted, I’m in shock. Apparently, this happens all the time in Mission Impossible movies but this was my first time. What an experience. Tom Cruise does it again.
In addition to being a James Bond family, we were also a Top Gun family. I am not exaggerating when I say I have seen this movie 50+ times (conservative estimate). L. and I, in various combinations, saw Top Gun: Maverick (2022) a combined 9 times between Memorial Day and Labor Day that summer. I wanted it to run forever. I wish every summer was the summer we were seeing Top Gun every three weeks. But I digress, back to the original. Back to being young and impressionable and learning how to be a girl, a woman, a person, a man.
Picture this - 8 year old me, a less evolved though nearly exactly the same size, version of me, walking around singing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” and quoting the movie verbatim. I bet my teachers loved this. Top Gun is rated a SOLID 1980s PG, so obviously 8 year old friendly. My mother seemingly did not care about all the cursing but either covered up the tv with paper or fast forwarded through THE sex scene every, single, time. As a rule-following child, I scrubbed past this scene until I was 16, when, during a weekend watch with a neighborhood friend, I simply did not. As you might expect, my brain melted out of my skull.
My life was changed forever. Now, I don't really think people can be turned gay but also I woke up the next morning a bisexual, can't explain it. Since Mr. Cruise and I have the exact same body type (if only I had the discipline for a six pack), he is and will always be the template for my trans-masculinity. Maverick in the open-air classroom, relaxed in his chair, leaning back, his buddy backing him up with jokes…it’s hard to describe the ache in my heart for that type of leisure. Watching Top Gun twice a week really got me thinking that I was going to grow up and ask to take showers at women's houses1 before eating dinner on a regular basis. But, instead, as close as I’ve gotten is getting versions of the Maverick haircut. I say versions because most hairstylists refused to do what I asked. I finally succeeded when a woman named Bianca actually heeded my request and didn’t tell me my hair was too beautiful to cut.
And back to masculine relaxation - being on a double date with your best friend, playing piano, drinking Bud Heavy...literally the most fun a person could have2.This scene hurts the most, despite being the most joyous in the film. We know now, 30 years later, what happens to Goose. We know now, 30 years later, what happens to the cowboy boot wearing son. But for just a moment, “take me to bed or lose me forever”. I have always wanted a life like this.
A moment I really like now that I'm grown, but never could hear clearly while watching a worn-to-death VHS, after showing up late and subsequently making himself at home, they are facing each other on separate chaise lounges, listening to Otis, and talking about family. As Maverick leaves, he says, very quietly, “thank you, I enjoy being here”. He finds a place to be safe, where he maybe he can be happy without going mach 2 with his hair on fire. But that safety only lasts so long. Goose dies, Charlie goes to DC, Maverick stays in California as Captain Pete Mitchell until we see him again many years later. He is alone, the fastest man in the world. But at least that story has a happy ending3.
So, now it’s Memorial Day 2025. We eat Thai brunch and catch the 1:00pm showing of Mission Impossible: Then FINAL Reckoning (emphasis Tom Cruise’s, when everyone asks him if this is the final MI flick (yes, all I have been doing is watching Tom Cruise press tour TikToks)). I cried three or four times, easy. Not only were there some pretty dramatic scenes of potential nuclear holocaust, but also Ethan Hunt’s sadness, his regret, as he tries desperately not to let the people he loves down, again. Tom plays it so god damn well.
Like Top Gun: Maverick, Dead Reckoning is about the past and how every action and thing you’re responsible for (that you caused, or that you must take care of) is threaded into the future, whether you like it or not. It’s a film about getting older, being wise enough to look back, and being free enough to feel regret, but also maturity to change. As Tom has aged, I have aged. There are regrets, sadness, chances taken and missed that influence how I live my life today. Around when my nephew turned 6 and I had an emotional breakdown watching one of the later Star Trek movies. Seeing Shatner as Captain Kirk desperate to be young again, or perhaps more, desperate to be his former self. Suddenly I knew I too will get old. I too will die. Despite spending three decades planning and processing my inevitable demise, fear of what I will leave behind paralyzed me4.
Which brings me back to Tom. Tom who does his own stunts (the wing-walking was just as incredible as you might think). Tom who has done so much for me, personally, over the years. While talking to the Hollywood Reporter Tom stated, “I’m going to make [movies] into my 100s.” At 62, nearly 63, that’s forty more years. Sometimes, thinking about turning 60, doing the same amount of life I’ve done already…again, makes me sick to my stomach. But the idea of seeing a Tom Cruise flick when I’m in my mid-70s thrills me. I can’t wait for that time, for who I’ll be, and what I’ll have learned. But from now until then, see you at the movies.
And speaking of taking showers at women’s houses, I’d like to shoutout Kelly McGinnis for being so fucking hot it’s dumb.
A close second of course is playing beach volleyball in jeans with your bestie who is wearing short shorts. Oh my god, plus “Slider, you stink.” My favorite line to yell, followed by “Where’d WHO go?!” and also “there are two Os in Goose, boys”. He’s 24 here, just LOOK at him. Rest in peace, Val.
Allegedly. Some conspiracy theorists say he dies in the test accident at the start of the film and the rest of the movie is Maverick’s dying fantasy of a happy ending.
Shoutout to my therapist who did not follow when I started crying and said “have you ever seen Star Trek Five?!”.
I’m worried about your response to finding out that I haven’t seen any Top Gun movies. But this was great. Thanks.