F1 is forgettable, but a lot of fun

In a largely patchy summer for blockbusters – the excellent 28 Years Later aside – Joseph Kosinki’s F1 stands out for two distinct reasons. The film has arrived at an interesting time for the sport, which is finding increased popularity in the United States among demographic groups that previously may have ignored it – such as younger women – due to the success of the Netflix show Drive to Survive, accordingly name-checked in the movie. That show gives a behind-the-scenes look at Formula One racing and is now onto its seventh series.

Given that F1 has often been viewed as a British and European phenomenon, the boost that it has received tallies nicely with the release of this mega-budget picture – a rumored $300 million – which, although it was partially funded by Apple, is still being sent out into the world by a hopeful Warner Bros, trusting that it will be a hit.

The other reason it’s interesting is because it’s a kind of spiritual sequel to 2022’s mega-grossing Top Gun: Maverick. Although it’s Brad Pitt’s apparently over-the-hill racer Sonny Hayes who’s taking center stage rather than Tom Cruise’s fighter ace, you have to admire the way in which a decent part of that film’s creative team have all been reassembled here. You have the same director, same producer (Jerry Bruckheimer), same screenwriter (Ehren Kruger, with considerable uncredited assistance from the likes of Aaron Sorkin and Jez Butterworth), same composer (the great Hans Zimmer) and same cinematographer (Claudio Miranda). In other words, the makers of F1 will be fervently hoping that audiences are going to respond as well to intense scenes of motor racing as they did of aerial pyrotechnics a few years ago.

The previous high watermark for such movies was Ron Howard’s Rush, which dramatized the rivalry between James Hunt and Nikki Lauda, and did so thrillingly. F1 is leaps and bounds ahead in terms of technical wizardry; Pitt and his co-star, newcomer Damon Idris, were both filmed at various races worldwide (in Formula Two cars, rather than the more expensive and dangerous Formula One vehicles), and when the film takes to the track, it’s almost impossibly exciting, thanks to the needle-sharp editing, Zimmer’s rousing score and Miranda’s stunning cinematography. Even if the layman is likely to be defeated by some of the jargon used, it’s easy to keep track of the basic action – fast cars try and go faster than one other, reaching impossible speeds – and cameos by real-life Formula One racers, including Lewis Hamilton, add to the sense of verisimilitude.

If however, F1 is five-star unmissable entertainment when it’s speeding ahead, it’s distinctly more pedestrian when the racing stops and the talking starts. Pitt lacks Cruise’s icy, almost otherworldly charisma, and his character Sonny Hayes is a fairly standard-issue good ol’ boy who was a successful driver as a younger man but stepped away from the sport after a horrendous accident that nearly killed him. He is brought back into the sport via plot contrivances involving his old friend Ruben (Javier Bardem, enjoying himself in a rare non-villainous role) who owns the fictitious APXGP racing company, and wants Sonny to bring some stardust to it before what seems an increasingly inevitable sale. Idris, meanwhile, plays Joshua Pearce, a talented but impetuous younger driver who swiftly butts heads with Sonny, referring to him contemptuously as an “old man” and treating his old-school methods and superstitions with disdain.

It does not take a genius to work out that the two will eventually become reconciled – in much the same way that the Cruise and Miles Teller characters were in Top Gun: Maverick – and there is a similarly formulaic feel to many of the other roles, with much of the talented cast underused. The ever-excellent Kerry Condon plays APXGP’s technical director, and at first it’s a refreshing change to see this fine actress play a competent, intelligent woman without girlboss clichés, but you know that as soon as you see Pitt twinkle and sparkle away, the two will end up in bed. And if you wonder why an actor of the caliber of Tobias Menzies has popped up in a minor role, well every blockbuster needs a sniveling British antagonist, and he does good baddie, albeit in a low key.

There is the odd interesting flourish – Pitt gets a great speech in the third act explaining why he does what he does, and I thought I detected Sorkin’s fingerprints on it – and even if it’s far too long at more than two and a half hours, this is never less than fun. But let’s be honest, you’re here for the races, which are probably the greatest ever captured in cinema. So buckle up and enjoy the ride while it lasts, but be prepared to forget virtually everything apart from the sheer sensation of being in an F1 race car traveling very, very fast indeed: the purest cinematic thrill you can imagine.