Coming some thirty-six years after the release of the first film, Top Gun: Maverick reminded film-lovers why we love going to the movies. It was a spectacle of the highest order as viewers joined actors in the actual cockpit of jets and planes to film a sequel that pays homage to its origins while pushing the envelope to the danger zone in terms of what can be done practically when it comes to conveying the beauty of flight and aerial combat on the big screen.

Tom Cruise returned as Naval Aviator Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell now serving as a test pilot before he gets recalled to the Miramar, and the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School as an instructor for a mission: impossible, with a new class of pilots.

Paramount Pictures delivers a one-two punch with your options of bringing Top Gun: Maverick home on physical media. And to rave about the image on the 4K disc is a given (I LOVE the IMAX photography). This film was stunning on the big screen and it doesn’t lose that on the transfer to the home theatre. It gives your speakers a workout and the details that you can pick out and register (those are actual g-forces affecting the actors’ faces) is amazing.

Maverick comes loaded with some solid extras, not the least of which is the teaser trailer for the next Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning Part One. But it has a look behind the scenes at the training the actors had to go through; a compressed flight school to bring them up to speed so that they would be able to film their own scenes in the confines of the cockpit, the cameras that were created to pull off these stunning shots, Cruise’s own plane, a gorgeously restored P-51 Mustang, the Top Gun plane of its day, the experimental plane, Darkstar, designed for the film, an in-depth conversation with Cruise from his appearance at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, and the music videos for Hold My Hand by Lady Gaga and I Ain’t Worried by One Republic.

Much like the first film, Top Gun: Maverick has already become one of those films I can just put on and settle in for any time, quoting lines, and settling in for the turn and burn.

You can pick up Top Gun: Maverick solo, or it’s also available in a Two-Movie Collection with the original 1986 Tony Scott classic, Top Gun.

And here’s where the hangup is for those of us who love our extras. In 2020 Paramount released Top Gun to 4K, and it came with a whole extra blu-ray of extras ported over from the original DVD and Blu-ray release, including a fantastic two-and-a-half-hour documentary about making the film.

It does have the new extras that were added to the 2020 release, a look at the legacy of the film with cast members, and a tease for Maverick.

If you hadn’t grabbed the 4K release of 1986’s Top Gun and aren’t worried about extras, and just want the experience, the Two-Movie Collection is a must-have addition to any cinephile’s collection. It showed the power of movies, the beauty of shooting practically (and getting amazing shots when you do it) and it helped remind everyone who saw it in the theatre why we go to the movies in the first place.

Kick in those afterburners, do some of that pilot shit and pick up Paramount Canada’s release of Top Gun: Maverick on 4K, Blu-ray or DVD. Available today!