Remember the very early '90s? It was like the late '80s, but for some reason everyone started thinking about Seattle. Many of us still had our Nintendo Entertainment Systems, and some of us may have been lured into playing the game based on the Tom Cruise NASCARvaganza, Days of Thunder. You know, Top Gun in racecars.
If you remember the pain of playing that game, then this review should feel like a transposition of your old preteen rage into YouTube data. This Urinatingtree guy's right on the money, and I hope he didn't have an aneurysm making this. But I'd understand if he did.
As an interesting aside, Roger Ebert had this to say about this movie, and most other Tom Cruise movies:
Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruise Picture, since it assembles most of the same elements that worked in Top Gun, The Color of Money and Cocktail and runs them through the formula once again. Parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome, but the key ingredients are still effective. They include:
1. The Cruise character, invariably a young and naive but naturally talented kid who could be the best, if ever he could tame his rambunctious spirit.
2. The Mentor, an older man who has done it himself and has been there before and knows talent when he sees it, and who has faith in the kid even when the kid screws up because his free spirit has gotten the best of him.
3. The Superior Woman, usually older, taller and more mature than the Cruise character, who functions as a Mentor for his spirit, while the male Mentor supervises his craft.
4. The Craft, which the gifted young man must master.
5. The Arena, in which the young man is tested.
6. The Arcana, consisting of the specialized knowledge and lore that the movie knows all about, and we get to learn.
7. The Trail, a journey to visit the principal places where the masters of the craft test one another.
8. The Proto-Enemy, the bad guy in the opening reels of the movie, who provides the hero with an opponent to practice on. At first the Cruise character and the Proto-Enemy dislike each other, but eventually through a baptism of fire they learn to love one another.
9. The Eventual Enemy, a real bad guy who turns up in the closing reels to provide the hero with a test of his skill, his learning ability, his love, his craft and his knowledge of the Arena and the Arcana.