Quite true how the story is pretty shallow. I’m wondering why on earth a movie like this can’t fetch a good story. It is a ‘set your brain at the door’ sort of flick. You go here and ignore the story and wait for the flying sequences.
The first eye-roll I had was in the beginning when Maverick takes off with the test plane and looked behind him (his helmet would block his view and so would the cockpit) as he blasted the admiral standing at the end of the runway. I’m not convinced that admiral wouldn’t have been at least slightly singed from being blasted by an afterburner.