When yesteryear racing star Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is approached by his former teammate-turned-raceteam manager Ruben (Javier Bardem), Sonny reluctantly enters the cutthroat, life-threatening world of Formula 1. But in keeping afloat Ruben’s bottom-ranked team, Apex GP, the seasoned veteran must drive on common ground with his fellow driver, the up-and-coming rookie Joshua (Damson Idris).
Brad Pitt gets his “Maverick” moments while Damson Idris makes the best of his runtime. For a racing epic that boasts a copyrighted sport name in its very title, along with a slew of real-life racers (including producer and all-time champ Lewis Hamilton), F1: The Movie doesn’t have any lofty pretensions to offer. It’s exactly what you would expect as the summer blockbuster follow-up from the director (Joseph Kosinski) and writer (Ehren Kruger) behind Top Gun: Maverick. Pitt might not be as smiley and self-confident as Tom Cruise’s aviator hero, but he balances old-school dad charm with some emotional self-awareness. He is Sonny Hayes, a washed-out racer grieving over a career-ending injury. In an era of advanced computer-aided aerodynamics and social media brand partnerships, Sonny is a dinosaur in the Formula 1 circuit. And yet, he’s the last hope for a team that’s driving closer to bankruptcy than any titles this season. Pairing him with an ambitious youngster like Joshua (Damson Idris) injects some much-needed camaraderie and light humor to go along with Pitt’s old man moping. With their “frenemy” banter, F1: The Movie carries promise as a two-man act with Sonny and Joshua clashing over their racing styles and ideals.
The supporting cast is reduced to cheerleaders amidst the hero worship. Javier Bardem is hilariously terrific as an optimistic team manager, Reuben. If he was worshipping Timothee Chalamet as a messiah in Dune: Part Two, he’s out here kissing the very ground Sonny Hayes walks on. Kerry Condon’s Kate offers promise as “the first female technical director of an F1 team” (as the expository dialogues constantly tell us), only to be reduced to a fairly standard love interest for Sonny. Granted, Pitt still has a rugged appeal to him for a broken hero like Sonny, but the unabashedly formulaic storyline’s tires need a change whenever it panders to hero worship. Despite teasing Sonny’s tragic past and once-promising career, it doesn’t take him much time to prove his mettle on the track. Despite setbacks from his teammate, the cool-headed Sonny’s all-too-convenient journey to the top can make F1 feel more like a globe-trotting series of laps rather than a sweat-soaked quest for victory.
Familiar underdog story elevated by cutting-edge racing and thunderously glorious sound. A paper-thin story and one-dimensional characters can still not stop F1: The Movie from being an all-out sensory experience when the motors start revving. Much like Kosinski’s Top Gun outing, F1 offers a first-person glimpse from inside the cockpit, as Pitt and Idris drove on actual racing tracks for the film (albeit in Formula 2 cars, not that it would matter much for non-F1 purists). Switching between views from inside the car and from the side of the tracks, F1 turns into a chaotic but immersive ride worth witnessing on the biggest IMAX screen. The exposition-heavy commentary can come off as condescendingly eye-rolling at times (yes, we get it that coming in the last place is a bad thing), but you’re bound to block out those voiceovers once the racing sounds kick in. From ear-splitting swerves on the track to blurry moments of tranquil silence, F1: The Movie’s sound design balances the hyper-realism of the sport with some cinematic surrealism. Pair up these soundscapes with Hans Zimmer’s glorious fanfare of a synth score, and you have enough in this film to amp you up.
Immersive racing and feel-good heroes upgrade F1 even if its story treads on familiar roads.
