Technically Extraordinary F1 Running on Narrative Empty
Whenever director Joseph Kosinski and his team of stunt drivers, special effects technicians, and sound designers drop the green flag and unleash the real stars of F1: The Movie — that would be the high-tech Formula 1 racing cars, not actors like Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, or Damson Idris — this is one of 2025’s best motion pictures. Reteaming with his Top Gun: Maverick cinematographer Claudio Miranda, the director crafts unbelievably immersive visuals that had my eyes transfixed on the screen. Especially when viewed in all its full IMAX glory, this rip-roaring assault on the senses is out of this world.
Pity the human story is such a mess. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger, working from an original story co-written with Kosinski, is a laughably dopey mishmash of inspirational sports story cliches and older veteran returning to action for “one last ride” hokum heroics. The soap opera dynamics are so histrionic they make the old-school melodramatic excesses of John Frankenheimer’s 1966 fan-favorite Grand Prix look boringly subtle, and as much fun as that high-octane perennial might be, trust me when I say that’s no small achievement on Kosinski and Kruger’s parts.
The plot follows legendary journeyman driver Sonny Hayes (Pitt). In his youth, he was a rising star on the Formula 1 circuit before a horrific crash cut his career short. A decade later he suddenly returned, driving everything from stockcars to dune buggies to motorcycles, almost always placing in the money (if not winning outright) before disappearing to search for a new challenge.
Enter Ruben Cervantes (Bardem). He’s a former F1 superstar who now owns his own team. The problem is, in almost three years they’ve never won a race. Heck, they’ve failed to place in the top ten. If they don’t score a victory by the end of the current season, he’ll be forced to sell and everyone who works for him will be out of a job. Cervantes wants Hayes to return to F1, hoping his mixture of cocksure moxie, driving aggressiveness, and old-school meat-and-potato work ethic will rub off on talented rookie Joshua Pearce (Idris), the team’s budding superstar.
It’s all every bit as saccharine as it sounds. Hayes is your typical salt-of-the-earth type of alpha guy. He goes down to the track before everyone else just to lay his hand on the asphalt and get a feel for the gravel. He goes running in worn-out shoes and eschews all the modern tech-heavy workout equipment. He uses a pair of tennis balls to maintain his quickness, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. He’s a love ’em and leave ’em type as it pertains to the various women he’s attracted to. If there were a random chicken somewhere to be found, I fully imagine Hayes would do his best Rocky Balboa cosplay and get out there each day to chase it.
This doesn’t give Pitt a ton to work with. He smirks. He grins. He struts around with a form of leading man confidence typical of a lot of the glitzy “dad dramas” from the 1980s and 1990s that helped transform Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Days of Thunder) and Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop II) into bona fide superstars. Granted, considering the presence of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, this isn’t a surprising turn of events. Still, Pitt isn’t exerting himself all that much from an emotionally complex standpoint, and while his raw physicality is impressive, Hayes remains too one-dimensionally dull to be a truly compelling figure worthy of all the fuss.
And, don’t get me started on what F1: The Movie does with Condon. She plays Kate McKenna, the first woman to spearhead an F1 design team. But does the script do anything with this idea beyond the superficial? No. Does it also make sure that this strong, intelligent, and fiercely independent woman ends up falling for Hayes’s retro masculine charms? Of course it does. While the actor gets a couple of strong scenes that showcase her Academy Award-nominated chops, mostly she’s just “there,” the stock female character stories like this have (under)utilized going on at least five or six decades, probably more than that.
This annoys me for several reasons, but primarily because Idris is incredible. If the story spent a bit more time focusing on Pearce, Kosinski and company may have had something here. Not that his character is any less of a stereotype, but more because the actor’s full-throttle, smolderingly sexy performance is a thing of mesmerically sweaty beauty. He shows the same sort of charismatic moxie and screen presence Pitt did in his youth, making this the type of star-making presentation that could instantaneously vault the youngster to the next level.
Then there are those extraordinary technical components. Kosinski does a spellbinding job of putting the audience inside the cockpit of the racecars Hayes and Pearce are driving. This goes far beyond anything I’ve seen before, including what was showcased in the aforementioned Grand Prix as well as 2019’s Ford v Ferrari, both of which deservedly won multiple Academy Awards for their achievements on an audio-visual front.
I’ll go out on a limb and hazard a guess that this racing drama will join them. The sound design alone is lightyears beyond anything I could have anticipated. When coupled with the epic score from veteran composer Hans Zimmer, his best in at least a decade (and I think purposefully reminiscent of his now-classic themes for Days of Thunder), this is a thunderous audio assault on the senses, and I say that as a compliment.
But every non-storytelling facet of F1: The Movie is beyond reproach. Kosinski is an astonishingly detailed cinematic craftsman, and even his lesser efforts, like this or 2013’s Oblivion, still look, move, and sound better than practically everything else released to theaters during their respective production years. This feature is a feast for the senses, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling frequently invigorated and moved by it all throughout the picture’s predictably massive 155-minute running time.
I’m just not willing to say that any of that was enough to keep my interest all the way through to the end. Maybe the film will grow on me the more I keep thinking about it or after I give it a second chance. Maybe not. Only time will tell. But while it does score a few points for its technical precision, I’m still keeping Kosinski’s latest off of the winner’s podium. At least for right now.
Film Rating: 2½ (out of 4)
