Re-enter the dan­ger zone with the first Top Gun: Mav­er­ick trailer

Ah, Top Gun, a crys­tal of zeit­geist for Ronald Reagan’s Amer­i­ca: oiled-up machis­mo, a spir­it of nation­al excep­tion­al­ism, rah-rah enthu­si­asm for the over­seas exploits of the mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex. Whether in a good way or bad way, it’s a key film of the ​’80s for US cin­e­ma, and it has long com­mand­ed rumors of a sequel reunit­ing us with Tom Cruise​’s peer­less fight­er pilot Maverick.

That sequel is real, it’s hap­pen­ing, and there’s a trail­er to prove it. Para­mount has pulled back the cur­tain on the first look at what’s sure to be one of next summer’s mar­quee titles, and movie­go­ers par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of footage in which expen­sive air­crafts go very fast will be pleased.

The film’s premise qual­i­fies as what crit­ic Matt Singer has termed a ​“lega­cyquel”, an addi­tion to a fran­chise prop­er­ty that sym­bol­i­cal­ly pass­es the torch to a younger class of actor. In this case, that’d be Miles Teller, who por­trays the son of Maverick’s good bud­dy Goose. (He is nick­named, in keep­ing with the avian theme, Rooster.)

Roost­er, his pal and fel­low trainee (Glen Pow­ell), and the rest of the recruits learn how to com­mand the skies in mach-break­ing jets from a return­ing Mav­er­ick, who’s still got plen­ty of fight left in him. The trail­er cycles through the oth­er big sell­ing points of the orig­i­nal, with a synth score evok­ing the original’s time peri­od and a glimpse at a care­free frol­ic on the beach.

But the real star here has to be the planes, what with all the whiplash-induc­ing flight footage designed to wow prospec­tive view­ers. The one thing the trail­er grace­ful­ly elides is, well, every­thing. Like the orig­i­nal Top Gun, the trail­er keeps its pol­i­tics sim­ple by nev­er mak­ing men­tion of who the Air Force is train­ing to shoot down as an ene­my. Don’t think too hard, and just rev­el in the whoosh of a prop­er­ly exe­cut­ed bar­rel roll.

Top Gun: Mav­er­ick comes the cin­e­mas in the US on 26 June, and then the UK on 17 July.