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Although the 1986 box office smash Top Gun seems incredibly dated when viewed today, the film will always hold a special place in my heart. That's because Top Gun represents several firsts for me: It was the first movie that I saw in a theater without my parents in tow, it was the first movie whose soundtrack I bought, and it was the first movie that I ever owned on VHS tape. Recently as I was cleaning out my attic, I discovered my copy of Top Gun and decided to dust it off and relive some '80s memories.

Top Gun stars Tom Cruise as naval aviator Pete Mitchell, whose call sign is Maverick. Maverick and his R.I.O (Radar Intercept Officer) Goose (played by Anthony Edwards of "ER" fame) are two of the best fighter pilots in the country. Every naval aviator's dream is to be invited to Top Gun, which is a very prestigious fighter pilot school that pretty much guarantees graduates will have excellent career opportunities. Maverick and Goose get an opportunity to attend Top Gun when the best pilot from their ship gets spooked after an encounter with enemy MiGs while on a routine training mission.

Although Maverick is an excellent pilot, he presents something of a behavioral risk to the Navy. He takes unnecessary chances when he flies and he often pulls stunts (such as buzzing by the flight tower) that he thinks are harmless, but which his superior officers won't stand for. So right off the bat, the viewer knows that Maverick and Goose aren't going to skate through Top Gun without getting into a bit of trouble.

From there, the movie will follow two distinct storylines, both involving Maverick. The main storyline focuses on the Top Gun competition that pits Maverick and Goose against other flight tandems, including archrivals Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Slider (Rick Rossovich).

The second storyline involves Maverick's burgeoning romance with a civilian instructor at Top Gun named Charlie. Her full name is Charlotte Blackwood, and she's an astrophysicist who routinely evaluates the pilots' flight maneuvers, giving them suggestions for improvement when necessary. She already has a short history with Maverick.  On his very first night in Miramar, the site of the training school, Maverick and Goose joined the other Top Gun pilots at a local bar, where Maverick proceeded to try pick Charlie up. He wasn't aware that she was an instructor or that she was already seeing another man.

Neither storyline yields any interesting twists. The Top Gun competition helped provide all the exciting flying footage and helped establish the personalities of the main characters. By the time the movie ends, however, it felt more like a cliched sports movie where the hero-turned-goat has a chance to be the hero again.

As for the love story, that plays out pretty much as you would expect, too. In typical Hollywood fashion, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, then boy wins girl back again.

Although the plot was far from original, I have to say that director Tony Scott executed the entire film very well. It moved along at a great pace and didn't have many boring parts to it. There was pretty good balance between the flying scenes, the classroom scenes, and the love scenes, and I didn't find myself wishing for either more or less than any of those.

It's also fun to watch Top Gun just out of a sheer sense of nostalgia, which is what I did. This is the movie that made Tom Cruise a bona fide star -- well before his couch-jumping days that would end up turning off fans and contributing to his dwindling box office appeal. Kelly McGillis was also at the top of her game back then and was one of the most popular actresses around before basically falling off the radar for good. We also got to see a bit of Meg Ryan as Goose's wife, and it was just fun to see all of these stars when they were young.

Top Gun certainly isn't the kind of movie that snobbish film buffs would be interested in, but if you just want a couple hours of solid entertainment that will allow you to enjoy a bowl of fresh-popped popcorn and your favorite beverage, then this is the movie for you.