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It seems like nobody cares. I can admit I felt smart when I picked up on it. And ultimately, if you need a low stakes high stakes bombing run...do a Star Wars in a nondsecript location, right?
Ultimately, I admit I'm mad at myself that I had such a cynical reaction to a movie that is both very unique by today's blockbuster standards (or most blockbusters of the last two decades) but that "very" comes with a lot of caveats that I might care about less if Cruise hadn't spent so much of the past ten years shocking the hell out of me.
Maverick is visually and sonically what I hoped for, which I guess is why I was surprised that it didn't want to play with expectations all the way. Like, I've heard critics and talked to regular friends about how surprised they were that they felt like Cruise and Connelly had a real connection...that was my reaction during Fallout when he briefly reconnected with Monaghan. Maybe it was as simple as that relationship being however briefly established in previous films, but...even outside of that, on repeated watches Protocol, Rogue Nation and Fallout definitely lean into several action movie (or even franchise established) tropes, they just surprise you time after time with where those tropes spawn from or wind up taking the story next. Top Gun Maverick felt...too inevitable, maybe?
Even forgiving Ethan Hunt, there's Edge of Tomorrow, Jack Reacher (where it's so interesting how he molds that role to his strengths) and even American Made/The Mummy, where he takes bland or plain terrible movies and forces them to be interesting. Here he doesn't have to do that on screen because for the first time everyone else seems on board; his character does the craziest shit, but all these other actors I barely recognize or don't know at all are very, very along for the ride. While it's fucking shocking to see on screen as its happening, in some ways it kind of lowered the stakes of what was being discussed on the ground. I don't think most people have seen or will see this movie and feel that same way - I could just be broken.
I think I can tell I'm being a bit of a nag here, I love how much people loved this movie in a way I was definitely more confused by coming out of SM: No Way Home...and I also totally get why, given the physical, logistical and fiscal stakes the airborne sequences were as limited as they were...but for me, that WAS the movie, and they sanded off a lot of edges with callbacks and generic interactions to get there.
Like you said, some of Cruise's most interesting decisions felt straight up bizarre in the context of the US military, and I think that bugged me because they take the flight action so seriously. At least in Mission Impossible, it's always an excuse for a wisecrack or an insanely dumb action sequence. The smartest thing they did with that franchise is make Ethan Hunt even more outside the law than James Bond; even when they attempt to address his bullshit, it turns out to be a con luring out the bad guys.
I dunno, this probably is a great movie. I still feel a pull to see it again knowing what it really is. I haven't been this conflicted about why I think the way I do about a movie as ultimately lightweight as this one in who knows how long. It's fun in that way.
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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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