Why Val Kilmer’s brief cameo is the most powerful moment in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
by Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times
May 27, 2022
3 minutes
Val Kilmer’s lone scene in “Top Gun: Maverick” is strikingly powerful — not only because it successfully projects decades of close friendship between his character, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, and Tom Cruise’s, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, but because it also draws on the actor’s own experiences. The combination lays fertile ground for a great, often unheralded performer to shine, if only for a moment.
In the 1986 original, Iceman was Maverick’s competition for the top spot in the Top Gun rankings — both were equally brash and testosterone-fueled young fighter pilots, but Iceman
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