- Angst? What Angst?: Neither Gannon nor Wade seem to care much about the fact that Purcell, one of their best friends and one of the world's best pilots, died.
- Awesome Music: The movie's orchestral soundtrack is actually very good.
- Best Known for the Fanservice: The movie is only known for a scene with Jessica Biel in a blue bikini and wearing very snug military uniforms, to the extent that The New York Times's review of the movie includes the phrase "wiggling her shapely rear" in the very first sentence.
- Designated Villain: The trio of Russian Su-37s that get shot down were only defending their nation from two foreign fighters well inside their airspace, one of which was actually planning to attack.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: Sure, Gannon and Wade end up together, and EDI is still alive, but Purcell is dead, they invaded several (hostile) nations' airspaces which will likely result in World War III, and North Korea could easily access the remains of EDI's technology to create their own EDI.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Josh Lucas would later be cast as Charles Lindbergh in J. Edgar.
- An artificial intelligence named EDI?
- For as much as some critics compared this film unflatteringly to Top Gun, several plot elements used here would actually pop up in that film's sequel, Top Gun: Maverick — most notably the debate over the role of human pilots in the modern military, and the fact that the climax features a main character getting stuck behind enemy lines and needing to be rescued.
- Narm:
- The evil supervisor calls his evil boss, to remind him that "This is the difference between warriors and politicians." Apparently, the difference is that warriors shoot themselves dead in restrooms.
- As one review pointed out, EDI downloaded every MP3 on the Internet and yet he only listens to Incubus.note
- EDI telling Gannon to "leave me alone" when he tells EDI to return to formation. The Machine Monotone doesn't help.
- Special Effects Failure: A lot of the CGI effects and model work has not aged well since 2005, with much of the visuals looking quite fake even at the time of the film's release.
- Tearjerker: EDI's final line. "....Goodbye."
- Following that, the relieved "They're ours!" from Ben as he and Wade look up to see a pair of Super Hornets showing their Stars'n Bars to them. The film doesn't help the Onion Chopping because it shows the US Military Roundel quite prominently in this scene as the music plays.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: Say what you will about the movie, at the time, the special effects were pretty convincing. Especially the crash that causes Henry's death as well as the explosion in Alaska. Digital Domain was responsible for the majority of them.
- Special mention must go out to the Talon warplanes flown by the main cast through the majority of the film. The life-sized models were so good that people mistook them for legitimate prototype aircraft promotions for the movie.
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