SnoopyStyle
Doug "Thumper" Masters and Matt "Cobra" Cooper stray into Soviet airspace. Thumper gets antsy and Soviet pilot Yuri Lebanov (Colm Feore) kills him. The incident is covered up by both governments. A nuclear weapon is being tested by a middle east nation. A secret joint Soviet-American-Israeli operation is planned to stop it. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair (Louis Gossett Jr.) is recruited out of retirement.I don't get why Thumper is killed right off the bat. I guess that Jason Gedrick is too busy and could only fit an one day shoot. The whole idea of a team of kids fighting back as underdogs is the backbone of the original movie. The whole raison d'être of the franchise has been ejected by this sequel. None of the kids are back. This is a Chappy sequel and he's only a small part of an ensemble. It's still a low grade Top Gun. It's like watching a pig wallowing in mud. One can't expect more. This is a porker.
Randy Young
As an aviation buff, I thought that this movie sucked. Passing off F4's as MiG's is just the beginning. The army sergeant is WAY too fat; he would have never been allowed to remain on active duty. The Soviet Union did not use women combat pilots in the 80's. (I know this because I used to study and teach Soviet combat tactics.) And the incident at the beginning of the movie would not have been something that could just be "hushed up." Much of the footage is from the first Iron Eagle. And that movie, although fanciful, is much better and many times more realistic. There are much better aviation movies out there. I was greatly disappointed by this one.
tfrizzell
Far from anything remotely special, but just as good as its fair predecessor. The only relation between the two films is the Louis Gossett, Jr. character as he is called in to lead a group of pilots that are from the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Another one of those many films made in the 1980s to capitalize off the fear of the Cold War. The direction is mediocre and the screenplay is sophomoric. With that said some of the flying sequences are well-done and Gossett's performance is not bad at all. However he does look a lot more impressive with sub-par players around him. Never really wins its wings by the time it tries to fly. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
maitreg
They should never have attempted a sequel to a not-so-good movie, but 3 of them?!?!? The series falls into the "what planet does the producer live on" category, like Jaws (after Jaws 2) and Police Academy (after the 1st).