‘F1: The Movie’ Review

Building off the success of his magnum opus, Top Gun: Maverick, F1: The Movie proves that Joseph Kosinski has a firm grasp on how to craft a summer blockbuster that hits all the right notes. Formula One has had several successful depictions on film, but the motorsport has never felt more intense than in Kosinski’s latest film. Another case of old meets new, while still maintaining the gloss and allure of its subject matter, the beats of F1: The Movie remain familiar and drift ever so closely to Kosinski’s success with Top Gun: Maverick, without feeling like it’ll ever soar to those heights. Leveraging star power with immersive action amplified by its IMAX presentation, F1: The Movie beefs up its already-exhilarating action sequences with some light drama to create one of the best movies about Formula One. The result is another technical achievement from Kosinski and his team, which prioritizes authenticity over its characters, serving as a gateway to the sport and a commercial that still delivers an experience designed specifically for the cinema.

There are a handful of reasons why someone is likely going to gravitate towards F1: The Movie. Those already familiar with the sport will have a tough time resisting the care and attention taken to ensure it’s appropriately depicted on the big screen. Produced by Lewis Hamilton - arguably the most popular F1 driver racing today - and featuring a staggering amount of real-life F1 drivers, team principals, reporters, and, of course, the tracks, it always feels only slightly removed from the real-life sport. Authenticity breeds immersion, and the attention to detail goes a long way to making the bombast of a blockbuster film still feel grounded. It all surrounds the more traditional Hollywood narrative as Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) gets a second chance in the driver’s seat of APXGP - an F1 team run by Ruben (Javier Bardem) that has managed to go two seasons without a single win and is halfway through its third season when desperation sinks in.

The film’s story works best when it is centred around the minutiae of a well-oiled team, specifically highlighting where the friction can cause disaster. Sonny’s stint as an F1 driver was cut short in his youth, but he never stopped driving professionally - it was just more freelance and flexible than being signed to a team. His arrival at APXGP and the rumours that the team is hemorrhaging money cause Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) to worry about the future of his driving career, as he needs to impress against a seasoned professional enough to secure a job with another team. It’s the inner rivalries of what is technically a team sport that make F1 much more exciting than it can sometimes seem on the surface. All of the inner workings, such as finance, the design and performance of the car, media training, positive working relationships, strong communication skills, excellent driving skills, and ambition, all come together to create a sport that doesn’t need more than two drivers on a team to create drama.

F1: The Movie excels in its exploration of the intersection between ego and professionalism. Sonny’s arrogance from experience clashes regularly with Joshua’s arrogance derived from simply being younger, and it comes out on the track, where the film hits its greatest highs. Plenty of films have captured the intensity of driving at absurdly high speeds, but none do it as well as F1: The Movie. Again, it’s that attention to detail and delivering it in the highest quality possible that makes the races breathtaking. Many racing films often rely on their technical merits and deliver nerve-wracking action sequences, where the hum of the engine becomes the heartbeat of the film. When stacked against F1: The Movie, though, they almost all pale in comparison. This is because Ehren Kruger’s screenplay (with a story developed by both Kruger and Kosinski) doubles down on the script he co-wrote for Top Gun: Maverick and ensures that outside of the driver’s seat the tension is palpable between drivers but they don’t fully show their colours until the rubber meets the road. It’s action doubling as therapy, or at least an outlet to demonstrate the characters' relationships with each other.

There are issues with the screenplay, but they’re mostly minor grievances rather than anything else. For a film where the drama is already palpable, there’s still a romance injected into the script between Sonny and APXGP’s technical director, Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), but it never quite takes off. Something is endearing about this being the second Kosinski film to focus on a relationship between two older adults, despite a sea of younger characters that might appeal more to younger audiences. However, the relationship suffers because the characters are never thoroughly explored. There’s a notable lack of nuance for everyone, and it forces the actors to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Charisma goes a long way, and it helps sand the edges a bit, especially with Pitt in the lead. Idris is arguably the better performer alongside Condon, but the film always gravitates towards Pitt in a way that reinforces his star power as somewhat all-consuming.

The frustrating realization with F1: The Movie is that it’s better than just a commercial for the sport, but is only truly astounding when it’s carving through racers on the track. Claudio Miranda continues to elevate Kosinski’s work with gorgeous photography that befits the creative visual impulses of its director. Kosinski’s always seemed hell-bent on delivering something visually distinct while pushing the capabilities of the technology at hand. Cameras mounted on cars built explicitly for the film, as well as Apple's contribution of customized iPhone cameras that can capture the interior of the cockpit, all contribute to the film's desired level of immersion, which helped make Top Gun: Maverick a success as well. IMAX is just the icing on the cake, letting the sound design and Hans Zimmer’s score complement adrenaline-fueled footage of real cars reaching ridiculous speeds.

If there was one nagging complaint throughout all of the film, it was that the movie feels like a glamorized take on what Netflix’s Drive to Survive already does well within a single episode - the show is even referenced by name in the film. The series has had incredible access behind the scenes of each F1 season, and each season of the show distills down specific arcs into single episodes that culminate in the final race. F1: The Movie is the length of three episodes from the series, but does far less within that time. It’s not necessarily fair to compare the two, as they are different formats that approach the sport in marginally different ways. However, when the film features real-life drivers, CEOs, and team principals from F1, why not watch a better version that's actually about the real-life drivers and the sport? If anything, F1: The Movie is the ultimate commercial for F1 because even in its most exhilarating moments, the film is only occasionally more dramatic than the sport itself. An extremely sturdy motion picture that does everything you expect it to do in a very effective manner, F1: The Movie is an achievement in immersion that shifts into autopilot when it steps outside the driver’s seat.