‘Mission: Impossible’ Director Gives ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ a Rave Review

Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has done outstanding work since he took control of the "Mission: Impossible" series and he's got a blazing hot take on his star's next movie.

Tom Cruise's favorite creative partner admits that he's seen the completed "Top Gun: Maverick" "many times" and loves it.

McQuarrie is one of five credited screenwriters on the film, so let's concede that he might be a bit biased. But it's also true that if you buy a group of screenwriters a few shots in a bar, they'll end up complaining about how directors screwed up their work. It's a strong endorsement for "Maverick" director Joseph Kosinski when McQuarrie says the movie is the "best film I've been a part of."

Let's compare, shall we? McQuarrie directed "Jack Reacher," "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" and is currently finishing the next two movies in the "Mission: Impossible" series. He won an Oscar for writing the screenplay of "The Usual Subjects," wrote all of the movies he's directed and wrote two of Cruise's other good movies, "Valkyrie" and "Edge of Tomorrow."

That's an impressive career filmography. If "Top Gun: Maverick" is really better than all of the above, then maybe we are really in for something special when the movie finally opens in theaters on November 19.

When McQuarrie says he's "lost count of how many times" he's seen this finished movie, it's a painful reminder of how much the COVID-19 pandemic screwed up moviegoing in 2020. One year ago, we should've been in our two-month countdown before a June 26, 2020 release. By now, we should've all had a chance to analyze the movie to death, offer up our takes on the action and the plot, buy a copy on home video and it might have even been streaming by now on Paramount+.

Now we're still seven months away and scouring the internet for evidence. Will "Top Gun: Maverick" be worth the wait? Christopher McQuarrie, for one, says yes.

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