F1: The Movie is visually and aurally spectacular pretty much from start to finish but, sadly, the Brad Pitt-led Hollywood take on the sport is let down by some glaring problems elsewhere
For so long, while marketing F1: The Movie to existing motorsport fans, the emphasis has been on all the outstanding efforts that went into making the film as immersive as possible. From filming at real-life Formula 1 races to creating bespoke cameras to fit into race cars, filmmakers went the extra mile on this front.
And, in the finished product, it shows. F1: The Movie is visually and aurally spectacular pretty much from start to finish but, sadly, the Hollywood take on the sport starring Brad Pitt is let down by some glaring problems elsewhere.
Many movies about motor racing have been made over the years and, while there are some good examples, many of them have non-existent plots and under-developed characters. Despite all the effort that went into filming this one, from Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, it struggles from the same issues, unfortunately.
Pitt has shown bags of on-screen charisma in many roles over the decades but, as retired F1 racer Sonny Hayes, brought back to the grid by his old team-mate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) who now owns the struggling APXGP team to help improve their fortunes, he’s just not particularly likeable. Not to mention his entire emotional backstory is forgotten the second he sets foot back in the F1 paddock.
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Very few characters feel fully developed, while the excellent decision to have APXGP technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) be F1’s first woman in that role, even if she is of course fictional, ends up being a massive missed opportunity. Her expertise is rather undermined when Hayes’ suggestion of how to develop the car ends up being what makes it competitive.
There is plenty of talent on screen with Hollywood royalty in Pitt and Bardem, the latter being a particular favourite of mine in other roles, while Condon, Damson Idris and Tobias Menzies are also great assets to have had on board. All of them are let down by the writing which doesn’t allow for much personality to shine through.
It is a missed opportunity, given how F1 has gone about building an army of new fans in recent years. The Drive to Survive show on Netflix is not the sole reason why the sport has become so popular, but it has had an undeniably massive impact.
Why is it so popular? Over the years it has shown us more about the people under the racing helmets. It is the personalities involved in F1 that people have fallen in love with, rather than the actual on-track action itself. It made the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Guenther Steiner into household names and that aspect should have been given more focus in this film.
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Long-time fans of Formula 1 will probably be frustrated by the end result, not helped by plenty of plot holes and entirely unrealistic scenarios which regular viewers of the sport will notice in an instant. But this is where the extra focus on the presentation helps – watching real-life race track zoom by to the deafening noise of an F1 engine and the Hans Zimmer-composed score really does help you to forget the weaknesses.
But casual F1 viewers or those who’ve rarely or never seen the sport will probably love it. because they are not entering the cinema with the prior knowledge which makes some aspects of the film difficult to accept. And, seeing as the whole point of the movie is to help F1 to further increase its fanbase, that probably makes the end product a success.