See this poll on: https://poll.fm/8984110/embed
Give others the chance to vote.
Share this poll, because the more votes the better.
Create your own.
Opinions! We all have them. Find out what people really think with polls and surveys from Crowdsignal.
closed
Top Gun made Cruise a star, A Few Good Men solidified him as an actor. But Tom Cruise is not an actor - he is and will always be a star, first and foremost. And I think, after all these years, that's exactly what he wants to be as he keeps choosing roles that keep us aware of his star persona. This is not a bad thing - too many stars strive to be actors and too many actors strive to be stars rather than being the one thing that they unmistakably are. You can't be anything than what you are. I will always remember Cruise for his action films. And I think he wants it that way.
Neither? I'm going with neither. With a gun to my head, choosing the one that bores me slightly less than the other, A few Good Men in a squeaker. But if both films disappeared off the planet tomorrow, I probably wouldn't notice. And frankly, I like Tom Cruise! I think he is underappreciated as a performer and he has become an easy target for derision, but man, you couldn't make me watch either of those movies again without a Clockwork Orange-style eye opening device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSV35A1cQDM&ab_channel=QuentinTarantinoHD
But, Top Gun is one of the greatest scripts ever written right?
I was in jr. high when Top Gun came out and I definitely felt like the odd man out because I really didn't like the movie. I hated all the gushy love story stuff and the soundtrack, in my opinion, was awful (sorry Mr Loggins and Company). Even with all the jet fighting action and Val Kilmer (Top Secret! and Real Genius are 80's classics) I had no love whatsoever for the movie.
And wow were my friend and family aghast when I gave my opinion that I didn't like it.
So this is an easy vote for A Few Good Men. I am going to avoid the danger zone at all costs.
This is a pretty close race to the bottom. There's just enough cheese to make me keep A Few Good Men on in the background but Top Gun can go away. Coincidentally, A Few Good Men seems to be the only film where the central focus is not "arrogant jerk learns a lesson and becomes a less arrogant jerk" so I'll stick with the code red and the guy who ordered it.
In the world of A Few Good Men, this death match has already been settled. Some lovable nerds put a squad of testosterone fuelled bullies (not unlike our Top Gun boys) on trial. And they win! AFGM also scores on cast and quotability. That's the truth and I can handle it.
"... Ghostrider requesting flyby"
"Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full"
While there are many, many reasons why Top Gun is the superior film, I will whittle them down to five (Because I know how much y'all like top 5 lists).
5. Volleyball (nuf said)
4. Relationship between Goose and Maverick. In one scene (You've lost that loving feeling in the bar) you understand everything you need to know about their relationship. The economy of writing in this movie is brilliant.
3. Foggy Sex scene. Now I know what it feels like to be a lighthouse keeper on my birthday.
2. When Your a Jet Your A Jet all the way! Especially when you are flying a real Jet! The flying scenes are amazing, and also add humor. (e.g. Permission to buzz the tower, I got a nice polaroid)
1. America, Fuck Yeah! I guarantee you people joined the armed forces after watching this movie. Hell, I wanted to shoot down some Migs after seeing this thing. And if you didn't, why do you hate America?
There is nothing good about Top Gun - the movie. The soundtrack was great for the time.... A Few Good Men is GREAT! And it is all Nicholson! We want him on that wall. We need him on that wall! Did i pick Nicholson over Cruise? You're G.D. Right I did! If you want some Cruise love...you should have had Rain Man as a choice.
I'm shocked that this is close at all. "Top Gun" is not a good film. It's terrible in fact. The conflict is disjointed and the protagonist is a smug jerk who doesn't go through an arc. Somehow the authority figures in the film reward him for the reckless behavior he exhibits while simultaneously chiding him. Then he gets his friend killed and it makes him sad for 5 minutes, so he wants to quit. But the movie conveniently reveals that his dad was a hero after all... as if to confirm that he's special and doesn't need to learn anything about himself over the course of the story.
The romance is even more rushed and unbelievable than the interpersonal conflicts with the rest of the character as if to ensure that we get more empty montages set to great music. Also, someone should have told Tony Scott that photographing a moving object in front of a perfectly blue sky gives no sense of speed or movement.
Top Gun is an exceptionally dumb, self-satisfied movie that insults its audience's intelligence.
A Few Good Men, on the other hand, is a great courtroom drama that actually has interesting things to say about authority, responsibility, and the downside of the armed forces' focus on hierarchy and obedience. I mean, just compare the most prideful character in "A Few Good Men" (Jack Nicholson's character) with the most prideful character in "Top Gun". The former is sent to jail, the latter is rewarded and gets to shirk the responsibility for his friend's death.
This is so simple. It's Top Gun and it is not even close. Admittedly, I absolutely despise Aaron Sorkin's smug superiority, I don't care how good his walk and talks are. It takes a talented director rub that smug off of Sorkin's work. Rob Reiner and David Fincher both managed to separate the best parts of Sorkin (the dialogue) from all of the rest of the garbage (did I mention the smug superiority? I feel like I should have). Here's hopping Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender combined can tame Sorkin enough to make the Steve Jobs film a good one. Sorkin is a terrible playwright (The Farnsworth Invention, anybody?) and a awful storyteller. Reiner, Cruise, Nicholson and company do yeoman's work overcoming the built in Sorkin obstacles, which makes A Few Good Men a decent watch, but they can't hold a candle to Top Gun.
Top Gun isn't a deep film with a strong moral center. Neither is A Few Good Men, but there is a lot of moralistic grandstanding against an easy villain to cloud the issue. My German friends refer to Top Gun as "that Navy recruitment film," which perfectly sums up the amount of time that Tony Scott spent asking tough questions about the politics and morality of being a fighter pilot for the Navy in the 1980s. So both of these movies are popcorn with no real sustenance. Top Gun is just much tastier popcorn. Top Gun is infinitely more quotable (as Edi pointed out), it has so much more spectacle (volleyball, actual fighter pilots flying actual fighter jets, and er, sexy time). It also has better performances. I used to write Kelly McGillis off, but as I have re-evaluated her work in Top Gun as I came to appreciate her considerable skill as a classically trained Shakespeare actress (who graduated from Julliard, by the way). Tom Cruise's bombastic hyper-masculinity is perfect for Maverick and a perfect foil for Goose, the loose and hilarious Anthony Edwards.
Top Gun remains a shining example of fun, hyper-masculine escapism that A Few Good Men doesn't even bother to dream of, let alone dare to match. Top Gun all the way. Maverick, you can be my wing man whenever you want.
In this exquisite new world, the truth still can't be handled ... But that's OK, because Goose lives.
I'm going with the older "serious actor" Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, a movie I adored when it first played in theaters. I've never actually seen Top Gun in English, though I have seen it dubbed in German (a reward from Frau Needham for completing a successful year of German II). However, I will neither see Top Gun in English, nor re-watch A Few Good Men, because I have sworn off Tom Cruise. I can't stand his snarky, self-important perpetually youthful face. He's over exposed himself and he distracts me from his movies and I just don't watch him any more.
Update. I was checking the last film I saw with Tom Cruise and it was officially 2001's Vanilla Sky. But wait! I have seen Tropic Thunder ( where he appears as a heavily disguised agent ) and Rock of Ages (where he is the best imitation of W. Axel Rose since William Bruce Rose, Jr. took the name). So apparently, I can stand Tom Cruise as long as he has obliterated his boyishly handsome self from the screen.
This is an intriguing death-match. Both films deal with issues within the American armed forces during peaceful times, except the political/strategic stakes are immeasurably higher in “Top Gun” than in “A Few Good Men.” The earlier film takes place during the Cold War period, in which global nuclear war was a definite possibility. A downed fighter jet over the Bering Strait could have caused a catastrophic international crisis. For the later movie, the drama depends on screenwriter Sorkin convincing us that the Cubans across the fence at Gitmo represented a true threat to Americans’ safety, which they didn’t. These few brave men were standing on a wall, sure, but in the age of “the hurt locker” and “the suck” their travails seem laughably tame.
It’s also cool because the films are polar opposites. “A Few Good Men,” as can be expected from a Sorkin script, is all talk – no minimal action, minimal violence, minimal sex. “Top Gun” is a thrill ride – unprecedented aerial stunt-work, shirtless Adonises playing volleyball, Cruise and Kelly McGillis taking each other’s breath away. By most objective standards, “A Few Good Men” is a better film. The script is better, the dialogue is Sorkin-good, the characters are more interesting, the conflicts more nuanced. “Top Gun” is a childish, simplistic, sexist, borderline fascist, escapist male fantasy. Obviously “Top Gun” wins for things I know nothing about – sound editing, cinematography, that kind of crap.
And yet, “Top Gun” is the more iconic film, the more quotable film, the more memorable film. Most people I know can’t remember anything about “A Few Good Men” other than the climactic Nicholson quote, while everyone remembers Val Kilmer inexplicably snapping his teeth at Cruise during one of their many sweaty exchanges. For this reason, my vote goes to “Top Gun.”