The Movie Review: Spoiler-Free – ScreenHub

Joseph Kosinski’s first movie since the fantastic Top Gun: Maverick was, of course, going to be a big swing. How do you follow one of the most beloved sequels ever made, which featured some jaw-dropping aerial sequences? You attempt to capture lightning in a bottle again, but this time for F1, the most prestigious level of motorsport racing. Does Kosinski prove that Maverick wasn’t a fluke? Let’s find out.

F1: The Movie (as it’s referred to in marketing) stars Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, “the greatest that never was”, a former F1 driver and gambler who now lives in a van working essentially as a racer for hire. The film opens up during the 24 Hours at Daytona, and plunges us into the cowboy racing style of Hayes, as well as Kosinski’s flair for the cinematic. Hayes is a bit of a drifter, and after his stint at Daytona is over, he’s quickly recruited by an old racing friend, Ruben, who is the current owner of APXGP (aka Apex, which was the film’s original title), an F1 team that’s down on its luck. With no wins for the team in two and a half years, Ruben is at risk of losing his team. So, in a last-ditch “Hail Mary” play, he recruits his old friend back to Formula One to help mentor his hotshot rookie and hopefully get some points on the board in the process. Failing to do that will see Apex’s board sell off the team.

The story in F1 is certainly not the film’s strong point. Not that it’s bad, it’s just very familiar and predictable. But most sports movies are, and despite the formulaic narrative of this movie, I really didn’t care because F1 was telling the story so well that I was on board with it. All the actors, including Pitt, Kerry Condon, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, and Tobias Menzies, showed up to work and helped sell the story of trials and tribulations. There’s no bad performance in the movie, and the film gives sufficient screen time to its characters. I really liked Bardem as Ruben, the team owner who may be too over his head, Condon as Kate, the team technical director who is trying to prove her doubters wrong, and Idris as Joshua Pearce. He’s a young hotshot rookie whose career is already threatened due to the team’s performance on the track thus far. He’s cocky and arrogant, so naturally he butts heads with Sonny, but the film wisely never makes him (or any of the real F1 drivers in the film) the antagonist. All this helps elevate the script in such a way that I just kicked back and enjoyed it. It won’t be considered for any Oscars in the writing category, but who cares? I was enjoying it for what it was.

But the film should most certainly be considered in the technical departments, because that’s where F1 shines. The production followed the F1 around during the 2023 season, getting unprecedented access to the world of these racers. So everything in the movie, in terms of look and scope, feels authentic, since they’re right there on the race track with the real drivers as the invisible “11th team”. The sound design and mix, and editing are top notch, but it’s the cinematography that’s the star here. Director of photography Claudio Miranda was snubbed for his work on Maverick, but he should 100% be considered for his work on F1. They mounted IMAX cameras into modified F2 cars to bring that cockpit experience to the big screen. You can definitely feel the speed. And by starting at Daytona, that sense of speed later on only feels faster once we go from a GT car to an F1 car. I particularly loved the camera that faced backwards on the nose; it really felt angular and fast. There’s also this neat camera trick where they can swivel the camera 180 degrees on the car, going from in front of the car to behind it in mere seconds, giving us a great look at the race going by from the POV of the car. Hans Zimmer also returns to the world of racing to score F1 after turning in the score for Rush. This time, he provides a synth-heavy backdrop to the luxurious world of Formula One, but manages to squeeze in those iconic horns of his at the same time. The rest of the music is original pop tracks with varying degrees of catchiness (which will be subjective based on your music preference, of course).

Now, this next point will likely only bother diehard fans of F1 racing, but Sonny Hayes is more or less a terrorist on the track in terms of his racing style. How he wasn’t expelled after his first race is beyond me, and his racing style, for lack of a better term, did pull me out of the movie a bit as a fan of the sport. But there’s a narrative reason for his less-than-professional racing style, and it did help with the story being told, so I can’t fully knock it. But for a film that was made in collaboration with the FIA (the governing body for motorsport in general) and boasts seven time World Champion Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff as producers, it did feel a bit inauthentic at times, making me wonder if the film is catering more to the fans of Netflix’ wildly popular and notoriously embellished Drive To Survive docuseries (which does get a shoutout in the film) than to genuine fans of the sport itself.

F1: The Movie may be a familiar story, but it’s done so well that it’s hard to knock it. It’s like going to a restaurant and ordering the most basic food on the menu, but coming out satisfied because the chef did such a good job. Some of the races may infuriate longtime racing fans, but the races themselves are well-shot and exciting. This is certainly a summer blockbuster of old, that juggles big thrills and a story that’s easy to digest and works for a mass audience. You’ve probably heard it before, but this is one you should see on the big screen. So fan or not of the sport, I’d recommend it if you want a breezy, fun movie.

But what’s your favourite racing movie? Do you prefer something grounded like the 1966 film Grand Prix or the 1971 film Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen? Do you prefer more attention on character growth, a la Ford v Ferrari? Or do you want to shut off your brain and just have a good time with cars that go vroom? Let us know in the comments!