‘Top Gun: Maverick’ is ‘insidious’ for portraying ‘virtue’ of US military: MSNBC editor

nypost.com:

a positive light, lamenting that the “literal propaganda,” as he described it, is “poised to become canonized as a highly decorated film.”The Academy Awards are on Sunday.

The action flick, which almost single-handedly recharged the dwindling film industry after the stagnation caused by COVID-19 lockdowns, has been nominated for six Oscars, including “Best Picture.”Aleem revealed he was not as pleased with the film as millions of American movie goers.

Though he admitted it was “a breath of fresh air to see dazzling live-action aerial combat scenes involving real actors (trained to withstand G forces by real pilots) and (mostly) real planes,” the columnist slammed it for being “as insidious as it is entertaining.”He declared it is insidious because of its overt pride for the American military, saying, “it also beckons for a return to accepting the American war machine as a beacon of virtue and excitement.”Aleem added, “It’s a poisonous kind of nostalgia, one that smuggles love of endless war into a celebration of live action.”The columnist reduced the film about patriotism, family, and U.S.

resilience against unimaginably tough odds to “literal propaganda,” pointing to the U.S. Defense Department’s contributions to the film.