When looking over the movies that came out in 2022, Top Gun: Maverick stands as one of the year’s biggest successes. In addition to earning a lot of positive critical reception (our own Eric Eisenberg rated it 4 out of 5 stars in his review), Maverick was the first 2022 movie to cross $1 billion worldwide, and it ended up being the second highest-grossing movie of last year, trailing only behind Avatar: The Way of Water. However, that doesn’t mean the Tom Cruise-led blockbuster was enjoyed by everyone on Earth, as evidenced by The Sopranos actor Robert Iler saying he hated Maverick and dropped an f-bomb over its Oscar nominations.
Iler, who played A.J. on The Sopranos, expressed his dissatisfaction with Top Gun: Maverick on an episode of YMH’s Not Today, Pal podcast with his cohost Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays A.J.’s sister Meadow in the popular HBO show (which can be streamed with a Max subscription). He started off by bluntly declaring that it “fucking sucked dick,” and later on shared the following opinion about how its success will be a detriment to Hollywood at large:
I think Top Gun ruined the whole movie industry. I think it ruined everything! It’ll save [the movie industry] for four or five years because people are like, ‘Oh this is it!’ It’s like eating fucking McDonald’s or eating fucking trash food. And then, all of a sudden, people are gonna turn around in four years and go, ‘Why do I feel bad?’ Because you’re watching garbage fucking movies!
Talk about not mincing words. Earlier on in the segment, Robert Iler called the first half of Maverick “such garbage” and then stated that the only reason the last hour of the movie was so appealing was because it’s “all jets,” which he admitted are “fucking cool.” Overall though, the actor clearly feels that Maverick was all flash and no substance, and lacked in originality. Furthermore, he worries that more movies will try to follow this approach in the years to come.
In addition to performing well in theaters, among the accolades Top Gun: Maverick collected was six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, though it only took home the Best Sound Oscar. Naturally Iler didn’t think that it deserved to be given such honors, saying:
This is my point, five years from now people are gonna go ‘Oh my God, we said this should be fucking best movie ever because we were fucking coming out of COVID in a fog…It’s fine [if the movie makes you happy], but then to say, Oscar, best movie, putting it in a category like Godfather? A shame! It ruined the entire movie industry. That’s it. I don’t want to watch movies anymore. Top Gun made me hate movies. Garbage. Absolute fucking garbage.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but considering Top Gun: Maverick’s 96% Tomatometer ranking and 99% Audience Score, he’s definitely in the minority on this one. Granted, Robert Iler might have been exaggerating his hatred of Maverick a bit for the viewers/listeners, but don’t count on him sitting through a rewatch of it. For those of you who did enjoy Maverick and now want to take it in again, but don’t already own it physically or digitally, sign up for a Paramount+ subscription to stream the flick.
While there has been talk about potentially making Top Gun 3, no discussions have taken place about it yet with Tom Cruise because he’s busy working on Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two. If the threequel is officially announced someday, CinemaBlend will let you know, but until then, keep track of what’s for sure on the cinematic horizon with the 2023 movies schedule and 2024 movies schedule.