Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.
If anyone who haven’t seen in my works or may not know, im a fan of Formula 1. Since early 2000s, I enjoyed watching many drivers with teams racing all over the world to see who’ll win to score and dreaming to becoming the world champion in their fast open-wheeled cars in high speed, while also putting their lives on the line without suffering on live TV. Even with the safety left a lot of question if its good or could’ve gone much worse, F1 is no stranger to be enjoyable to watching from Ferrari vs McLaren since 1970s, some team trying to take the next level to building strong car or even seeing one driver who’s rising to the ultimate challenge, for better or for worse when it comes to rivalry. Though in nowadays, while I still like to see F1, but it feels like its no longer the same where it used to, ranging from Max Verstappen is aggressive against anyone with his time in Team Red Bull, Ferrari are acting like clowns based on their idiotic strategies and excuses, some kids are either desperate or full of ego (*cough* Lando Norris cough), some teams are no longer the same when they used to like Williams, the V6 turbo charge sounds is like vacuum scratching on a chalkboard, some circuits are taking place in the streets for which came off as both lazy and cheap, and worst of all, the president of the FIA is a complete control freak. But, even if F1 is in desperate to be good since the good’ol days, it doesn’t mean its 100% bad, it has some good moments and stuff. So, why did I bring this up for today’s review? Well, looks like somebody think it will be interesting to having a movie in Formula 1.
“F1 The Movie” is a sport drama film that was written/produced/directed by Joseph Krosinski (yup, the same director who gave us Top Gun: Maverick), co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Lewis Hamilton (yes, the one and only modern seven times F1 champ since Michael Schumacher), Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner and Chad Oman, and co-written by Ehren Kruger.
The idea of this movie started on a bidding war, when both Brad Pitt, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ehren Kruger and Joseph Krosinski start developing their big project about the world of F1, with Lewis Hamilton jumped in for the project, along with FIA in collaboration. Many studios jumped in for the war for who’re going to be involve with the project, its not just major ones Paramount, MGM and even Disney, but also streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple. As a result, Apple (ugh…!) had won the bid and going to be involved with the project as both in production and distribution (though Warner Bros are also threw their hat in the ring) to giving us the movie with F1.
So, with all that said, is it as dramatically exciting to race with fictional team, is this film we’re going downhill very badly much like either Williams or Sauber?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
For movie going into fictional with F1, you think the story is gonna giving us something unique or pretty cliché from the get-go? Well, technically, yes, but its a mix about drivers and the team, dependable…
The movie begins with the bang, where we introduce a nomad free agent driver name Sonny Hayes, who’s racing with Porsche at 24 Hours of Daytona, which he ended up win the race. However, despite his winning and received a check, the reason why he’s in nomad in his van, its because he used to be a promising driver with Lotus, right before his near death experience with a near fatal car crash, leaving him having an addicted to gambling (hence his gimmick) and got three times divorce (Ouch…!). Despite living himself into hell and winning Daytona, the latter is impressing his former teammate/buddy, Ruben Cervantes, who came for discussion to offering Sonny to coming back to the world of F1 with his team “Apex Grand Prix F1 team” (APXGP F1 Team), mainly because his team is struggling that since they arrive about couple years, the team is in backmarker and had no wins, no podiums nor even high score, otherwise the investors and the board of directors will sell the team if its another year with no wins nor podium, though Sonny wasn’t so sure, but he accepts the deal. Once he packed up to flying in UK, he arrived at Silverstone to meeting members of the team like Kate McKenna the team’s technical director, Peter Banning, the board member, Kaspar Smolinski, the team’s principal and finally, the hotshot rookie/teammate, Joshua Pearce. Unfortunately, when they started on British GP (instead of starting on Australia or even Bahrain), its up to Sonny Hayes cooperate both the team and his teammate to do the best driving in order to keep the team open to prevent shutting doors.
Basically, the movie is basically the mix veteran driver who’s asked to coming back to the motorsports when he used to, and the team’s struggling to keep the doors open or else be gone when the season is over, its like a mix between “The Wrestler” and one of my favorite sports movie “Slap Shot”, which I find it to be fairly descent concept that they gotta race to do the best to putting their teams and business on the line, even if it kinda took similar concept from Slap Shot, or at least like any struggling business from several movies. Though the movie isn’t just the team’s sacrifice, usually focusing on two drivers (kind off), whereas Sonny is about trying to get himself back since 3 decades ago to help the team, and Joshua is trying to help the team and kind trying to be a big deal in the name of family, even if its a challenging chemistry between of two from in order to not only help the team, but also working together to do the best finish, especially for their different personalities, but you know what this also reminds me of? It reminds the EA F1 game’s campaign called “Braking Point”, specifically the first one that was introduced in F1 2021, you know a game where a young driver who entered F1 to teaming up with a veteran to working together, but became a crap show from the start, even though I never played the game, but I watched the cutscenes from the internet (but if anyone wants to play it, sorry to say, its no longer available in digital market, but buy physically). There’s also a subplots in this movie that it has two things, the first is the team’s setup that they’re trying to upgrade or even make an odd strategy to win, which sure, upgrading car is dependable if the FIA accepts it, or worse, if its illegal for their investigation, which is common since some teams trying to make something unique to upgrade their cars to win, some can be acceptable (though only in season before its banned after its over, similar to Mercedes’s Dual-Axis Steering in 2020) but others crossed the line (like the infamous Brabham’s Fan Car in 1978’s Swedish GP). And the second subplot is the struggle of Sonny Hayes’s life, mainly his origin, but let me tell you, when they showed his origin before he three decades return, they gave us quite possibly the Biggest BS moment I’ve ever heard as a “not-so-smart” F1 historian, but trust me, il talk about it later, even if it may sounds like a SPOILER, but just a small detail to reveal. Sure, while this movie has an action and couple of drama, but the movie may including some humors, either from deliveries or the dialogues, which I will admit, while the writing is trying to be understandable about F1 (even if they tried a bit “too hard”), but at least they gave us some chuckle moments.
While the story is flawed from similar ideas, but its a nice from the get-go about the taste of modern F1, some good humor dialogue, even if there are some moments that either defying F1’s rule book and the WTF origin.
The Presentation
The movie’s budget costs between $200 – 300M, but man… The movie’s presentation looks pretty damn cool to watch with actions, despite there are some moments that I asked so many questions in racing scenes.
For starter, the filming locations are pretty good and fun to watching with racing sequences, like Gran Turismo the movie, they filmed in actual race tracks, commonly the tracks in F1 like Silverstone Circuit in UK (the OG F1 track since 1950), Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium (one of fan favorite, but also dangerous as we all know), Monza in Italy (another classic track since the 50s), Suzuka in Japan (one of my favorite F1 track), Zandvoort in Netherlands, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico, Las Vegas Strip Circuit (god I hate this track, all that for cheap show than racing…!), and Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, but rather than filming this during the race, it was filmed in Friday, which is taking place with two practice session before the qualification on Saturday, meaning it will be pretty unlikely to filming in actual qualification and racing, so they have to film on Friday’s practice sessions for their time to film. Although they also filming outside of F1 tracks like Daytona International Speedway on Daytona Beach, Florida during the “24 Hours of Daytona”, it plays like the famous “24 Hours of Le Mans, but the track in Daytona is rather short, whereas Le Mans is ridiculously long straights with couple of chicanes. And even Brands Hatch in UK (yes, the same track that was used in F1 since Rush) for the flashback scene in Spanish GP in 1993 (though they could’ve filmed in Jerez circuit in Spain, maybe they skipped over for their budgets or so), but the rest is obviously using stock footage (and post-production edit) of the infamous near fatal car crash of Mark Donnelly during the Friday practice of 1990 Spanish GP (Again, more on that later).
The way they filmed the racing sequences are pretty good and fun to watch based on the placements of cameras from onboard view (with perfect center like in IndyCar whereas in F1, the camera is off-centered), a sidepod with fast-paste turn when the car is overtaken or incoming car (they can be fun, but sometimes it could be overused to just stayed camera. Those where Apple (ugh…!) stepped in for the way they filmed in production based on the use of iPhone and powered by A-series (Apple Silicon) system on a chip, which is especially when the team did the same thing when they did in “Top Gun Maverick” like the placements on which sides and cockpit, along with shrinking the size of the cameras to prevent the cars’ weight. And the aforementioned turning control was actually came up from Panavision.
But of course, the first highlight part of this movie is the fictional team, APXGP F1 Team, for my best, its a British F1 team to act like one of the more new team since last couple years, but they never had winnings, nor even collecting points after three years (Huh, its pretty much a fictional backmarker since Manor Racing in 2016), otherwise, like I said before, leaving board of directors and investors tell them that if there’s no wins, APXGP will go “bye-bye”. For their headquarter, its easy to notice that they filmed in McLaren Technology Center, the wind tunnel scene was provided by Williams, and the racing simulator was filmed in Mercedes HQ at Brackley, which is located on West Northamptonshire in UK, so not bad to filming in team’s headquarters, which is coincidence that both teams have Mercedes engine supply. But when it comes to their cars, rather then building a F1 car from scratch, they recycled the F2 car (Dallara F2 2018) to modifying it with V6 Turchocharge hybrid engine and a couple aerodynamics packages to look like an F1, despite its an F2 car disguising as an F1 car (come on, I can build my own F1 car in EA F1 game with “MyTeam” career). But as for the livery, it feels just like one of those black and gold car, in other words, they recycled the same color scheme from Team Lotus in 70s and 80s.
The last and definitely not the least for the highlight, are the racing sequences. Like I said they filmed in Friday without getting bombarded from qualifying/racing schedules. Those racing scenes are pretty good and fun to watch to see a struggling team trying to overtaking against any teams to collect points and fingers crossing to win. However, while the racing are pretty good, but its worth pointing that the racing are real, no special effects involve. But sometimes, some scenes gave us some dumb moments that left me so many questions. For example, in Hungarian GP, Sonny Hayes is constantly getting clipped by any drivers on purpose to bring out safety car to let Joshua Pearce having an easy overtake from pit strategy in their “Plan C” (What is this, a debris caution mix with Crashgate??). Or worse, some scenes with questionable near death experience, in Italian GP, when Joshua is trying overtaking Max Verstappen in Sonny’s dismay, Pearce got hit by Parabolica’s (Monza’s final corner) sausage kerb that got him flying in the air and crashed outside of the track, I mean, I get this is a reference from Alex Peroni’s crash in F3, but as an F1 car? That’ll be impossible to crash like this, when today’s F1 car are heavy like 800 kg, unless if the cars get lifted by wheel after wheel like when Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crashed together at 2021’s Italian GP. But don’t even get me started when Sonny went in Race Rage in Las Vegas before bumped into Sergio Perez and crashed in fences to track (im pretty sure they replicate Carl Edwards’s nasty crash at Talladega in 2009 Aaron’s 499 when Brad Keselowski took his first W, but that’s just me), they wanted another shot of having Brad Pitt coming out of car and fell flat after the crash, but it was removed in the final cut (Yeah, cutting the walking on the track while almost dying after the crash scene is a good call for removal, cause it will be even more exaggerating).
While I question about the on which questionable moments and even some exaggeration part, but at least the film’s production, the filming and the racing are pretty damn good to watch as both movie goer and F1 fan.
The Characters
Since this is the alternative time in F1, you think they could give us something interesting and relatable characters that feels almost like F1 drivers? Well, yes, but with more personalities, though dependable for the execution.
Lets start with the main protagonist, Sonny Hayes (played by Brad Pitt), the veteran driver who used be a big shot back in his younger days of F1 when he used to be with Lotus, right up until he near fatal car crash of 1993 left him away to becoming a broken man from gambling addictions, three times divorce, desperate for job searching and “Racer for Hire” that he just wants a check, despite he’s in nomad life in a minivan. I find him to be a fairly descend character, even if he’s another one of those broken down athlete in whichever sports movies (like say Randy Robinson from The Wrestler), even if he still has a passion of racing, and also looking for money. While he’s accepted to going back to the track, you would think that Sonny is going soft to give it a shot with modern technology compared to when he had in the early 90s? Well, yes and no, he could drive, yes, but it just came off as mixed from constant slip to even constant clipped by almost every cars for the combination of questionable pit strategy and safety car deployment, that would be fine to coming back as race engineer, but not so much for coming back to driving the car in his late 50s. Oh and remember when he had a replica of near death moment from Mark Donnelly back in 1990? Well, in typical movie fashion, while he suffered a harsh injuries of C5 fracture from 1993, he walked out in no problem after being recovered, which it just didn’t make any sense that, if you have a harsh injuries, that all depends if you’ll coming back to race or forced to retire from medical concern, in case for Donnelly back then in practice, his crash left him a F1 career ending with even worst injuries with brain and lung contusions and bad leg fractures that he was close to be amputated. But for Hayes, its just spine injury that he could’ve been retired forever and bounded on wheel chair, like there’s no freakin’ way to coming back to motorsports when he nearly died like this, along with living in broken down life. I know im harsh for saying that, but I know people said its dependable if you’re good to coming back or not if its not that harsh like say, Romain Grosjean back in Bahrain GP in 2020 (despite he has burnt scars on his hands, but he’s saved thanks to Halo cockpit). Again, while he’s a fairly descent protagonist in the movie, along with his origin that gave me a head-scratching, at least Brad Pitt did a good work of his performance, let along learning how to driving F1 car after learning how to drive with both F3 and F2 cars.
Next up is Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris), a British rookie driver who’s been with APXGP since when the team opened. While most drivers are either calm, taking seriously, genius, a cardboard cutout or being space and time wasting to be in F1 (cough Lance Stroll cough), here JP is a hotshot rookie that he always wishing to be the best be in F1 since Lewis Hamilton won 7 titles like Michael Schumacher. He’s being charismatic, fast and a loud cocky driver that he wishes to be a big shot in F1 to win the title, think of him as Rod Tidwell from “Jerry Maguire”, without the level of ego as an underdog driver. Especially when he and Sonny have a sour star in different personalities from Sonny being a veteran with questionable strategies, while Pearce is a loud rookie in the name of “Show me the money!” (kind of). And I will say, Damson did a good work of his performance that he has an energy from calm to charismatic (without being egotistic), and like soap maker in Fight Club, he also taught to driving two minor open wheeled cars before driving F1 car (even if its a F2 car disguising as an F1 car).
After the drivers, we have Kate McKenna (played by Kerry Condon, aka the AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. in MCU), a female technical director of APXGP that she’s trying to help the team upgrade the car in attempt to beat any teams to get the winning, even if when she tried to upgrade the car in whichever parts, the FIA will going after the team in question for legality. She plays almost like a mentor when it comes to taught our main hero drive the more modern F1 car, that is until she’s also the obvious love interest to Sonny halfway through the movie. She’s more of a passable character in the movie to teaching the drivers to hopefully this will win the team (despite if she could get herself into trouble if she crossed the line) and being Sonny’s new love interest, and Kerry did a nice work of her role.
After that we have Reuben Cervantes (played by Javier Bardem), who’s not only the owner of APXGP, but also had a history of F1, not because he used to be a racer, but he’s also Sonny’s former teammate back in F1 racing days as their buds. But when his team is in Dire Straight, he thinks that this will be the opportunity to bringing his old friend back to the glory to saving his asses before closing doors. While he seems to be friendly with old Sonny, but he’s also being so desperate to either keep the team going if they win, closing doors or going into new management whether he’ll stay or go home. I find him another descent boss of the team, but he’s more of a desperate man of bringing back to the good’ol days, even if Sonny’s near death experience his haunting him for why he backed out as a racer but working as a businessman to boss of the team, along as partially a historian of F1 (Huh, kinda like me, eh?). Though il give a credit for Javier’s nice performance of his role.
And finally, we have Peter Banning (played by Tobias Menzies), APXGP’s board member who’s keeping his eyes on the team if they’ll doing good or not. While he’s sorta like a secondary boss, to keep the business team in the flow, but he’s also… A fan of F1, based on his personality? I mean sure he may like F1 to keep the team open or not, but most board members are taking seriously to do the right thing, if not “BE GONE!”. But here, he seems to be a bit obnoxious that he enjoys a bit too much on F1, unless he wants to be the new boss of APXGP, as long as he doesn’t going nuts about. While he’s kind of over the top, but il give a credit for fun performance to Tobias.
As for the rest of the movie, the most common are the members of APXGP that they have plot developments and conveniences, there’s Kaspar Smoliski (played by Kim Bodnia) the principal of APXGP, Bernadette Pearce (played by Sarah Niles) who’s Joshua’s mother and kind of protective on her son if it didn’t go on his way, Hugh Nickleby and Rico Fazio (played by Will Merrick and Joseph Balderrama) who’re the race engineers on our main drivers, Jodie (played by Callie Cooke) who’s a clumsy tire gunner, and Cashman (played by Samson Kayo) who’s Joshia’s best cousin and manager.
Since this movie was filmed in fictional 2023 season, we have a couple of cameos of drivers, however, those F1 drivers are just there for being obstacles. But the only personalities we have in F1 are the principals/CEOs like Zak Brown from McLaren, Frederic Vasseur in Ferrari, Guenther Steiner from Haas (though we was in 2023 before he was fired due to disagreement after 2023) and even Toto Wolff (though the latter is about to give a plot element, but won’t tell you more to prevent SPOILERS),
The characters in this movie are fine at best, sure they may some that I like, but the rest, they’re more of passable or hollow.
And now for my final opinion of this film.
Overall, F1 The Movie is pretty nice film, while its the best film, as a fan of F1, but its not bad.
It as a descent story, the writing maybe good, the characters are above average, the acting are good and the presentation looks fantastic in the view and racing scenes.
Sure, while I enjoy this movie, but there are couple moments that left me scratch my head in confusion such as Sonny’s origin, a dumb strategy that makes Crashgate look like a joke and some crashes left so much questions (again, I know the racing and crashing scenes are done for real, no special effects involve).
While im sure non-F1 fans will enjoy this movie for all about the struggling team, a rocky chemistry drivers, and of course, the racing scenes to be a fun action moments. But as a F1 fan like me, I find it to be good, even if there are moments left me so many questions, even some motorsports fans that, while enjoy it, but they’ll probably be critical for various moments. For recommendation, once again, its one of those films that you gotta watch it once and il let you guys make a conclusion if you like or not, though if you do like it, perhaps you can give it a shot to watching a real F1 racing, either from clips on the internet or even live racing, if you want. But for F1 fans, it will be a debatable for how the movie’s presented.
For my rating, im gonna give this one a 7/10.
So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
Oh, and Happy 4th of July.
