'f1 the movie' is as generic as its title

but that's about what i expected anyways

I’m a Formula One fan. Ferrari, to be specific, so let’s not talk about the state of my team right now.

I tell you this because I want to be straight up with you—I’m not only going to be reviewing “F1 The Movie” as a movie fan, but my experiences as an F1 fan will also probably impact how I view this movie. There might be moments of bias, but I’ll do my best to stay objective.

I understand “F1” wasn’t made for superfans. It’s the same way that “Top Gun: Maverick,” directed by the same mind behind “F1”, Joseph Kosinski, wasn’t made for people obsessed with Navy fighter jets. To that end, I think “F1” achieves what “Top Gun: Maverick” does: it gives you around 2.5 hours of chair-gripping action.

Spoilers ahead!

things i liked about “F1”:

1. The camerawork is very impressive.

   The cars are actually driving down the track, and the cameras are actually in said cars, giving it a truly lived-in and realer feel than if it were all CG. Also, as a fan of the whip pan, I loved seeing it in use during the movie.

objectively, this goes hard.

2. The soundtrack, done by none other than Hans Zimmer, works.

   It keeps the film high-adrenaline while injecting a slight electronic influence, which is no surprise given that the diagram of F1 fans and EDM fans is very damn close to a perfect circle. (I would have preferred Reznor and Ross because I’m a fan of how they did the soundtrack for “Challengers” score, but Zimmer fits the more classic, blockbuster vibe this movie is going for, so fine. I get it.)
   And I know this isn’t technically about the soundtrack, but the sound design in this movie is very good.

3. The movie acknowledges APXGP doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

   It makes a point to reference both the drivers of the past and the present. Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) canonically drove with Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna, two legends of 90s F1. The 2024 F1 grid gets many, many cameos and mentions. APXGP engineers flip off Haas’s. Team principals Fred Vasseur (Ferrari) and Zak Brown (McLaren) get speaking parts.

   At one point, while Hayes does an interview, real Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso walks by and pats him on the back. While he probably only did that because he thought Pitt was a real F1 driver, I’m chalking it up to how natural the immersion of APXGP into the F1 season felt.

LECLERC!!! LECLERC!!!! CHARLES LECLERC!!!!

4. “F1” guides viewers through F1, albeit very broadly.

   It does not expect the person watching to know anything about Formula 1 other than it’s a bunch of rich people driving very fast cars in a loop, so the movie explains all the parts of the sport as it goes.
   F1 commentators Martin Brundle and David Croft appear in the movie as themselves, commentating on the races while also sneaking in explanations of the more technical aspects of racing, including penalties and the starting grid. APXGP deals with the press, gets injured, talks strategy, tests parts in wind tunnels, and suffers through FIA regulations, all things that every team on the grid has experienced before. It’s all “breadth over depth,” yet it’s a good way to show every side of the sport to people who have no clue about it. But when seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is producing your movie, I’m sure portraying the sport as accurately as possible is at the top of the list of priorities.

things i did not like about “F1”:

1. The world does not revolve around Brad Pitt, contrary to what the movie thinks.
   Pitt dominates every piece of promotional material, to the point where the viewer thinks he’s the only person in the whole movie. Damson Idris, Pitt’s costar, plays rookie driver Joshua Pearce, yet there’s little about him in any main poster. Lest the movie forgets, there are two drivers on an F1 team!
   Speaking of Joshua, I think the movie should have spent more time fleshing out his character. Joshua is Black, and there should have been space for commentary about being Black and driving in F1. Lewis Hamilton is the only Black driver to formally compete in Formula One, and I’m surprised his experience didn’t have more of an influence on Joshua’s character arc.
   Regardless, I also just do not think Brad Pitt was that good in this movie. I know he can play a smooth-talking, action-loving, cheeky bastard, and he did a better job of it in the “Ocean’s” trilogy (perhaps I’m biased, I have a soft spot for those movies). In “F1,” even though Sonny Hayes’s character isn’t totally fleshed out, Pitt doesn’t bring much to the table here to help out. He’s not Sonny Hayes, he’s just Brad Pitt.

brad pitt tells him to get off his damn phone in this scene. boomerposting at its finest.

2. The plot is too generic.
   To be fair, I’m not entirely sure what I expected from a summer blockbuster. I guess I would’ve liked seeing more about the people in the movie, rather than just having them as accessories to the plot.
   The arc of “F1” follows “Top Gun: Maverick”’s similarly. The top billing of the movie (Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt) returns to a place that shaped their youth (Top Gun or Formula One) to train/lead its new generation (more pilots or APXGP¹). They fall in love with someone (Penny or Kate), unpack the demons of their past (Goose’s death; Hayes’s injury/daddy issues), and eventually uses their old-gen mentality to lead the new gen to victory (destroying an enemy air base; winning a race and ensuring future success). Credits roll.
   At least, what the movie lacks in plot, it makes up for in action. I’m just a little tired of the same style of movie following the same tired structure.

3. The women in this movie are sidelined, ridiculed, or straight-up ignored.
   I don’t think the movie treats any of the female characters properly.
   First and foremost, we need to talk about the romance subplot. Sonny Hayes romances APXGP’s technical director Kate McKenna (Kenny Condon), and it’s a total waste of her character. As technical director, Kate designed APXGP’s car, which team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) repeatedly calls a “shitbox,” devaluing the work she’s done. Then, somehow, only Sonny Hayes can think of a new front wing design to make APXGP fast, but Kate refuses to listen to him until he scores points, making her seem pretty stubborn in her ways. Throughout the movie, Sonny continues to woo Kate and gain her respect before she finally listens to him and implements the design. Lo and behold, APXGP does become faster, the two become emotionally close, and they sleep together in Vegas. Afterwards, she clings onto Brad Pitt, and we don’t see her really being the badass she was in Acts 1 and 2. Kate’s story arc COULD have been something good, where we could’ve seen her experience being one of the first female engineers in an entirely male-dominated sport, but her entirely unnecessary romance subplot with Sonny ruins an otherwise compelling character.
   Callie Cooke plays Jodie, a pit stop tire gunner for APXGP. Initially, she continually makes mistakes during pit stops, jamming her gun or leaving it out on the track, reinforcing a “ditzy blonde” stereotype. It’s only when Sonny joins the team and everything falls into place that she seemingly “gets her act together.” Ignore the fact that F1 pit crew members go through extensive training to make a stop run as smoothly and quickly as possible, make the only female pit member the one who screws up, and let’s make her stop once the big man whips everyone into shape.
   During the Italian Grand Prix, Joshua ignores Sonny’s advice of waiting to overtake Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, hydroplanes, flips his car into the air, crashes, catches his car on fire, and somehow only gets two burns on his hands. His mother, Bernadette Pearce (Sarah Niles), chews Sonny out, believing Sonny’s recklessness caused her son’s injuries, only for it to be revealed in the third act that it actually wasn’t Sonny’s fault at all, that he was right all along, and it’s implied that all her worry and anger was misdirected and therefore unnecessary.
   And finally. Simone Ashley’s cut part. From what I’ve read about “F1”, she was supposed to be Joshua Pearce’s love interest, but the role got cut. I think it’s egregious, as her part could have been a good commentary on how WAGs (wives and girlfriends of high-profile athletes) get treated in Formula 1. This isn’t the first time something similar has happened, as Manny Jacinto’s role in “Top Gun: Maverick” was also cut in the editing bay, and it generally doesn’t speak very kindly to how Joseph Kosinski views people of color or women in his movies.

kate look out theres a washed and chopped mf in front of you

4. The product placement in this movie is borderline egregious.
   Sonny takes off a probably very specific and fancy watch before every race and sets it by a photo of him and his late father. It’s supposed to be a touching moment, but the touching-ness of it is undercut by how the watch is framed in the shot—as if that’s the focus, less so the moment or significance.
   He also wears APPLE AirPod Pro Maxes and tells off an APXGP board member by texting him the middle finger through IMESSAGE on his IPHONE and wears an APPLE WATCH on top of his other watch. I understand Apple’s making the movie, but this feels overkill.
   When Sonny stands on the balcony on his Vegas hotel, there’s a moment where the Wynn is slightly blurred in the background. For a split second, it looks less like a Hollywood movie and more like an advertisement for the hotel.

maggie’s generally insignificant complaints about “F1”:

1. The title is so stupid.
   Yeah, I got nothing else here. I just think the title’s dumb and generic. I understand that branding-wise, there might not be much to work with, but “F1 The Movie” is giving me the same vibes as “A Minecraft Movie,” and that’s not a compliment.

2. Watching some of these scenes gave me a little secondhand embarrassment.
   Imagine this: it’s the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. You are Lando Norris (McLaren), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), or Charles Leclerc (Ferrari). You’ve podiumed in the final race of what was undeniably a chaotic season. You’ve just finished celebrating, and now they tell everyone except for Charles to clear before bringing in George Russell (Mercedes) and Brad Pitt to film another fake celebration. Way to undercut the joy.
   “F1” was actually filmed during real races in the 2024 season. To that end, it features real drivers, who have varying degrees of comfort on camera. While Hamilton revels in his cameos, others like McLaren’s Oscar Piastri dip out a little early with their screentime. The secondhand embarrassment I feel is more just a bit of empathy for them, because if someone made me pretend to do my job for a movie, I’d probably be standing around awkwardly as well.

3. Tons of minor boring gripes and complaints and errors.

   • The film switched between 2023 cars (you can spot the dark red and white Alfa Romeo team, which later rebranded to Stake F1) and 2024 ones. Yet it maintains the use of the 2024 grid, which begs the question, when was this movie supposed to take place?

   • Sonny’s driver code, HYS, should be HAY. Likewise, Joshua’s driver code, PRC, should be PEA.

   • The APXGP garage is way too neat and clean. It’s like someone tried replicating a real one but also made it sad gray millenial.

final thoughts!

I watched “F1” with my boyfriend, who’s way more obsessed with the sport than I am, and it was a fun date. F1 fans will probably enjoy “um actually”-ing at everything and noting all the little cameos and easter eggs.

If, say, I were to watch this movie with my brother, who could not care less about F1, he might consider getting into the sport because of the movie.

Which is to say: this movie probably won’t change your life, but if you go watch it with friends, it’ll at least be a fun, air-conditioned time for everyone. (Move aside “Drive to Survive” fans; it’s time for the snobs of F1 to turn their noses up at movie fans.)

Suspend your disbelief and enjoy watching cars zoom around for 2.5 hours; you’ll have a blast.

Rating: 3.5/5

and the grandstands are rising…

1. APXGP, the brainchild of Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), is only about two years old. That would place its formation around 2021 or 2022, my guesstimate of when the “F1” canonically takes place, though it’s never explicitly stated in the movie. The youngest team on the grid, Haas, was established in 2016.