Although the comedy was unfairly forgotten in the years since its release, the late Val Kilmer’s movie debut, 1984’s Top Gun’s Iceman, the villain turned fire-forged friend of Tom Cruise’s anti-hero Maverick, to The Doors frontman Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s biopic of the same name, Kilmer was a towering talent whose decades of work saw him emerge as one of the foremost American actors of his era.

However, one element of Kilmer’s role in Top Gun might have made him a mainstream star, his earliest movie role highlighted a whole other, often overlooked, side of the actor.

1984’s Top Secret Was Val Kilmer’s First Movie

The Late Star Played Rock Star Nick Rivers In The Spy Movie Spoof

Val Kilmer’s first movie was 1984’s Top Secret!, a follow-up to 1980’s smash-hit disaster movie parody Airplane! from directing team David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. The trio, also known as ZAZ, was highly sought after when Airplane!’s gag-heavy parody stylings managed to earn both mainstream acclaim and critical success. However, although their later Naked Gun movies were similarly successful, Top Secret! failed to find an audience upon release.

This can’t be blamed on Kilmer, who commits wholeheartedly to the role of American rock star Nick Rivers. Tasked with playing at a cultural festival in East , Rivers inadvertently becomes involved in a plot to overthrow the government when he meets Lucy Gutteridge’s femme fatale, Hillary. If that summary sounds a little strange, that is probably because Val Kilmer’s first movie is an utterly unique blend of musical parody and spy spoof. The Nick Rivers character is clearly modeled on Elvis Presley, but the plot is straight out of a Cold War-era spy thriller.

Fresh off the success of Airplane!, ZAZ were emboldened to try out a lot of ambitiously bizarre gags in the live-action cartoon Top Secret!.

As a result, Kilmer not only delivers a lot of hilarious deadpan verbal gags, but also does a shockingly impressive amount of singing, dancing, and prat-falling in this mile-a-minute comedy. Anyone familiar with Airplane! or the Naked Gun parody movies will already know that ZAZ’s output can border on surreal humor even more than the movies of Mel Brooks, but Top Secret! ups the ante considerably. Fresh off the success of Airplane!, the trio were emboldened to try out a lot of ambitiously bizarre gags in this live-action cartoon.

Top Secret Highlights An Underrated Side of Kilmer’s Screen Career

2010’s MacGruber Saw The Star Make A Rare Return To Comedy

Although one might understandably expect a movie that spoofs both spy thrillers and Elvis Presley’s movies to feel uneven, Top Secret! is a lot more consistent than its detractors claimed. Top Secret! didn’t earn as much unalloyed acclaim as Airplane! upon its original release, but it has been recognized as a cult classic in the years since. One of its early champions was the iconic critic Roger Ebert, who called its then-unknown star “a funny young actor named Val Kilmer” and praised its blend of “physical humor, sight gags, puns, double meanings, satire, weird choreography, scatological outrages, and inanity" in his Chicago Sun Times review.

The star never lost touch with his comedy roots after decades of acclaimed dramas, thrillers, and Westerns.

While Top Secret! wasn’t the financial success that Kilmer’s movie debut deserved to be, this didn’t stop the actor from occasionally revisiting the genre that first made him a star over the years. Most notably, Kilmer played the villainous Dieter Von Cunth in 2010’s similarly underrated MacGruber. Bizarrely, this Will Forte vehicle was another spy movie spoof that was loved by critics but proved a commercial flop. Kilmer also had a cameo in 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, further proving the star never lost touch with his comedy roots after decades of acclaimed dramas, thrillers, and Westerns.

Why Top Secret Is So Underrated

Airplane’s Followup Was A Tough Sell

Although it might be hard to understand why Top Secret! failed to match the success of more famous parody movies like Airplane! and the Naked Gun series, the fate of ZAZ’s underrated flop makes more sense given its choice of genre parodies. Top Secret!’s plot is a weird mash-up that spoofs war movies, spy movies, and ‘60s musicals alike, so, although it’s very funny and boasts Ebert as a fan, the movie wasn’t as easy to market as Airplane! or The Naked Gun. Despite this, viewers looking to Val Kilmer need to seek out his unmissable debut, Top Secret!.

Source: RogerEbert.com