F1 is a Dad's Paradise
There's nothing more exciting than watching fast cars go fast on a massive screen.
It took approximately two seconds for me to realize that F1 was going to be the dad movie of the year. Trust me, that’s a compliment.
On a scale from Top Gun: Maverick to Twister (both are excellent dad movies, by the way), F1 probably falls somewhere in the middle. It’s a thrill ride from start to finish, with dynamic and exciting racing sequences covering up some screenplay and character flaws that ultimately don’t matter once the credits roll. This movie is unapologetically about racing, and since the racing is stellar, F1 accomplishes exactly what it set out to do.
What sets F1 apart from other sports movies, particularly those about racing, is the sheer spectacle and scale at which everything unfolds. If you didn’t get the chance to see this in a theater, I’m so sorry. No matter how good your home entertainment system is, nothing compares to seeing and hearing Formula 1 cars fly by on a massive screen.
Director Joseph Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda put the viewer right in the driver’s seat. Throughout every race, and there are a lot of them, you’re smack dab in the action. You feel every turn. You feel the acceleration as the car blasts down a straightaway. If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe I was actually in the car with how intimate it all feels.
That’s Kosinski’s specialty. The parallels between his work on Top Gun: Maverick and this movie are clear. I’d go as far as to say F1 is just Top Gun: Maverick but with race cars. And hey, that’s what I wanted, and that’s what I got, so I’m extremely pleased.
This review would be incomplete without mentioning the fantastic score by Hans Zimmer. No matter the genre, he simply doesn’t miss. His score for F1 is pretty different from anything he’s done before—I’ve seen a lot of people compare it to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ work on Challengers, and that’s not entirely off-base—and it just goes to show how vast his range really is. Hearing it blare through IMAX speakers was a pleasure, and like many of Zimmer’s compositions, it made me feel like I was levitating out of my seat.
Let’s talk about the cast. Brad Pitt is the star, and boy, is he as charismatic as ever. Even in his sixties, Pitt exudes a rare kind of superstardom that actors don’t seem to possess anymore. Alongside him is Damson Idris, who I was fairly unfamiliar with prior to F1. Now that I’ve seen him in action, though, I’m sold. In fact, I’m so on board with Idris that I’d go as far as to say he should be the next James Bond—and if you know me, you know just how high of praise that is.
Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem are also in the cast, but they don’t have much to do. That’s mostly because everyone—Pitt, Idris, and the rest of the ensemble—is working with a fairly lackadaisical script. The screenplay, written by Ehren Kruger, is by-the-numbers, to say the least. It’s a retread of several other films in the genre and is filled to the brim with clichés.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A washed-up veteran returns to mentor a flashy young talent. At first, the young buck refuses to listen to the wisdom of those who came before. But after many trials and tribulations, the two bond and end the movie as friends and champions. Sound familiar?
On top of the familiar plot, the dialogue is also atrocious. I found myself correctly predicting the characters’ lines in multiple scenes, and that’s a failure on the script’s part. In my opinion, it’s fine for F1 to follow a beat-by-beat blueprint of the genre’s best, but at least give us some interesting character moments to go with it.
But as I said earlier, that’s not really what the film is about. F1 is about fast cars going fast and all the emotions that come with it. By my count (and this might be a slight exaggeration), 75% of the runtime is spent in the driver’s seat. That’s exactly what I want.
So, if you’re seeking blockbuster thrills, F1 is for you. If you’re looking for something that’s going to reinvent the wheel, you’re out of luck.
At the end of the day, F1 is the movie of the summer so far. See it on the biggest screen you possibly can. It’s worth the price of admission.
Final Score: 4/5
I love Letterboxd. Scrolling through and reading what other people around the globe think about different films is fascinating. So, at the end of each movie review I post, I’ll end it with some of my favorite reviews from other people on Letterboxd.
Paul Scheer (3.5/5): “This Movie is what I think Nicole Kidman means in her AMC speech.”
alor (4.5/5): “wait lewis hamilton from Cars 2 is in this????”
brooklyn (3.5/5): “almost walked out when ‘sonny hayes’ overtook charles leclerc”
hunter strawberry (4.5/5): “how can you explain a generic title like “f1 the movie” when “Pitt-stop” was literally there for the taking
Adam (2.5/5): “So when Brad Pitt crashes a bunch of cars it’s ‘the blockbuster event of the summer’ but when I do it I’m a ‘liability’ and ‘an insurance risk.’”
joj66 (3/5): “Sonny Hayes committing so many track crimes that the FIA would have him publicly executed.”
MovieFella (5/5): “(Brad) PITT STOP”
this Dad liked it enough to see it twice. It is the race car version of Top Gun but it is a fun movie. And, the visuals are amazing...