Does not age well

Yep. Saw it when it came out. Sucked then and now. It succeeded because ladies liked the male leads and it fed men's innate desire to be jet pilots. Throw in hit music tracks and presto, bad movie wins! It has a few quotable lines. That's it.
2/10

It's very much an 80's film and the excesses are what makes it great.

The only parts that make me cringe a little are seeing the same Phoenix missile get fired a few times over in the final dog fight.

>>Even the flying that was SO spectacular at the time seems boring and implausible to boot. <<

Perhaps it has something to do with the likelihood that the first time you saw it it was on a screen that was 60 to 80 feet wide vs one in your den not as wide as your height?

It ages very well! Great movie

The pacing is slow? Lol, you would hate Lawrence of Arabia then if you think this has slow pacing.

The only thing that didn't age well was the music, and I guess a bit of the pace at the beginning. Beyond that, it's miles better than most of the crap today, even with the slowish and clunky beginning. The fact that it doesn't have any superheroes in it or is based on an existing property already makes it at the very least half decent right out of the gate, and this is a movie that came out in the 80s.

As far as pacing is concerned, "Top Gun" is closer to good pacing than most movies today. Contrast between excitement and calm periods is important to effective pacing. Today's action movies are almost continuous chasing and fighting, like a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon drawn out to two hours, and they're exhausting. Add to that tenth-second cuts and CGI and they're just video games. Adequate rest periods in between action scenes are essential to story and character development, and to prevent audience burnout.

Currently the #1 ranked popular movie of 1986 from IMDB.

Movies that don't age well, usually lose 50+ slots from their box office ranking.