Top Gun: Maverick
Out in cinemas 26 May (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly
Thirty years after the events of Top Gun, former hotshot US Navy pilot Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) is now a test pilot who has for years refused any advancement in rank. Upon the request of his former brother-in-arms Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, now the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, he is called up to train a group of new pilot trainees for a special combat mission. Among these trainees, many unaware of Mitchell’s illustrious past, is the son of his late flying partner “Goose” (Teller).
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Tom Cruise: Impossibly ageless
More than 30 years on, the well-preserved 59-year-old Hollywood A-lister revisits his iconic role of Maverick in the long-awaited Top Gun sequel while still a bona fide action hero.
By the time Tom Cruise put on those iconic Ray-Ban sunglasses in 1986’s Top Gun, he was already looking at a bright future in the movie industry.
At 24 when he first played the brash pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, he had made his Hollywood breakthrough three years earlier in the comedy Risky Business (1983).
Top Gun, along with The Color of Money and Rain Man earned Cruise more positive reviews and critical acclaim. They would turn him into a superstar.
By the end of the 1980s, he would get his first Academy Award nomination for playing a Vietnam War veteran in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July.
In a career that has sustained as well as his boyish good looks, spanning across four decades, Cruise has proven himself to be one of the most bankable stars in the business – his films have grossed more than US$10 billion worldwide.
His hit films are too many to mention, although many will recall the three-time Oscar nominee’s memorable turns in A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, Jerry Maguire and Minority Report.
Into his 40s and 50s, the prolific Cruise has evolved into more of an action star, often not shy to appear shirtless, and has starred in the highly successful Mission Impossible films, as well as the sci-fi thrillers Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow.
Almost 60 now and still remarkably well-preserved, Cruise can next be seen in the Top Gun sequel that brings him full circle to one of his most famous roles.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Out in cinemas now (available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor
After casting a corrupted spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dr Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is plagued by nightmares and the realisation that his botched incantation has had far-reaching implications. In fact, he is responsible for opening doorways between universes that are bringing forth chaos across different realities. Venturing into the Multiverse, Strange and his allies, such as Wanda Maximoff (Olsen), seek to undo the damage caused by his actions, and must confront multiple versions of himself in the process.
Operation Mincemeat
Out in cinemas 19 May (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald
In 1943, at the height of the Second World War, British intelligence officers Ewan Montagu (Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Macfadyen) hatch a daring scheme to misdirect the Nazis about the Allies’ true intention to attack and liberate southern Europe through Sicily, Italy. To carry out this intricate plan, they need to disguise a corpse as a deceased British officer, plant fake documents about an offensive via Greece, and set the body adrift at sea so that Nazi spies can pick up the “intelligence”. Based on true events.
Undone S2
Out now, Prime Video
Stars: Rosa Salazar, Bob Odenkirk, Angelique Cabral
A woman who survives a car accident (Salazar) is haunted by visions of her dead father (Odenkirk). Through conversations with him – real or imagined – she then learns that she has a hidden ability to bend time and reality. Determined to discover the truth behind her father’s mysterious death, she starts digging into her past and that of her family. Her erratic behaviour starts to cause concern in her mother and her sister (Cabral), whom she recruits on her improbable quest to uncover a buried family trauma.
The Sound of Magic
Out now, Netflix
Stars: Ji Chang-wook, Choi Sung-eun, Hwang In-youp
Yoon Ah-yi (Choi) is a regular schoolgirl who has clung on to a dream to become a magician ever since she was a child. When this dream appears to be slipping out of her grasp, she suddenly meets a mysterious man dressed as a magician, named Lee Eul (Ji), who apparently lives in an abandoned amusement park. As the pair strike up an unexpected friendship, she wonders if he possesses the ability to perform real magic. Meanwhile, he shares his desire to stop time and somehow go back to being a child.
The Essex Serpent
Out 13 May, Apple TV+
Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Claire Danes, Clemence Poesy
In Victorian times, a widow from London, just freed from an abusive marriage, arrives in a small village by the sea. Convinced that a mythical beast known as the Essex Serpent, perhaps a dinosaur that has somehow survived extinction, could one day emerge, the widow Cora (Danes) stirs up the imaginations of the village folk. She then becomes unlikely friends with the local vicar, Will (Hiddleston), with whom she has numerous disagreements. The pair grow closer still despite his being married to Stella (Poesy).
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