I wasn't expecting this trainwreck to be as bad as it turned out, but here we are talking about what might be one of the biggest disappointments of 2025, I know there is a lot of people that dont think this way specially if you dont know much about Formula 1 and you dont have to be an expert Im just talking an average viewer. After watching all the hype around Brad Pitt getting back into action movies and Joseph Kazinski directing after his success with Top Gun Maverick, I really thought we were going to get something special but instead what we got feels more like Need For Speed trying to cosplay as a real F1 movie and failing badly at every turn, why the backfire why??. The whole idea is that there is this old guy coming back to Formula 1 after being away for 30 years and somehow being competitive against drivers who have been training their whole lives is kinda ridiculous that it makes you wonder if anyone involved in making this movie has ever watched a real F1 race, because if they had they would know that this sport requires insane physical conditioning, lightning fast reflexes and years of experience that you can't just magically get back after three decades of driving taxis and gambling your life away, that been said the funny part is that YES there was a 7 time F1 World Champion, Sr Lewis Hamilton as an advisor to the project, I love the guy as a driver one of my favorite drivers and I cant believe he allow all this to happen. The movie tries so hard to be this inspirational comeback story but ends up being more like watching your dad try to keep up with teenagers at a video game tournament, it's painful and embarrassing for everyone involved.
Rottentomatoes Rating
The technical aspects of this movie are so contradictory to what real life is and its very frustrating because its like nobody did any real research about how Formula 1 actually works, starting with the cars themselves which are supposed to be these precision engineering marvels but in the movie they are shooting flames out of the exhaust like some kind of Fast and Furious fever dream. Real F1 cars don't do that unless something is seriously wrong with the engine, but I guess they wanted to make things look cool for the trailers so they just said screw accuracy and went with whatever looked most dramatic on screen, something that was heavily talk about after the first Fast and Furious movie, the famous "Manifold Damage". Then there is the Apex GP team that feels like a lazy copy paste of the Mercedes team, you got Javier Bardem playing this German Team Boss basically Toto Wolff with a similar accent and the whole relationship between him and the drivers is similar to what we see with Mercedes and their drivers, he is the one calling the orders. The racing scenes look pretty good thanks to the IMAX cameras and all the money they threw at the production but when you know anything about F1 you can spot all the things that make no sense, like how Brad Pitt's character can somehow warm up his tires by hanging back on the formation lap and then magically get this amazing start that puts him ahead of everyone else, cheeky move that most likely can be penalize so drivers just dont do it and its infraction after infraction.
The story itself is so predictable that you can see every twist coming from miles away, especially when it comes to the romance side story between Brad Pitt and the technical director played by that actress who was good in other things but gets completely wasted here. From the moment she comes up to the screen you know exactly how this is going to play out, she is going to be all professional and resistant to his charms at first and he did good by putting a stop to Hayes but then it was all over after a few drinks, slowly warm up to him as he proves himself on the track and eventually they will have some kind of romantic moment that feels completely forced and unnecessary to the larger story. The whole thing feels like someone took a template for sports movies from the 1990s and just changed a few details to make it about racing instead of boxing or baseball with some classic liche like the young hotshot who needs to learn humility, the evil corporate suits who want to shut everything down and the big climactic race where everything comes together in the most convenient way possible. What makes this even worse is that the movie had access to real F1 races and locations, so they had every opportunity to create something authentic and exciting but instead they chose to go with the most generic storyline.
The ending of this movie is what made me think they saw drive to survive sucess and decided to make a movie copy pasting from other F1 races, the ending is basically just a recreation of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix where Lewis Hamilton lost the championship to Max Verstappen in controversial circumstances, except here they flip it so that the underdog American team wins instead of the established champion. Its like they watched that race and thought hey this was dramatic, lets just copy it exactly but change who wins so people feel good about it, which shows such a lack of creativity and I could extend to lack of respect for the sport but I think I have rant enough and dont want to over extend things. The whole red flag situation that gives Brad Pitt's character a chance to get back in the race after crashing is a very Hollywood like event that I can appreciate as a twist before the ending, honeslty it did change things because it was almost certain he was out, it feels like divine intervention rather than realistic racing but Im fine with that, its a movie after all not a documentary. There are so many incredible real stories from F1 history that they could have used as inspiration, like Niki Lauda coming back from his horrific crash or Lewis Hamilton's rookie season where he nearly won the championship but instead they chose to just recycle recent events and present them as fiction. There are so many drivers who actually lived through those moments and fans remember how emotional and significant that 2021 season finale was, because now its just being used as cheap drama in a Hollywood movie, I feel sad for Lewis, insert here meme "Not Like This".
F1 The Movie feels like it was made by people who have never actually watched Formula 1 and just assumed they could wing it based on what they think racing movies should look like, which results in something that looks expensive and professional, I had to admin the movie looks good and feels good if all you are focus in the sense of speed and the race but the drama felt cheap even though if I knew nothing about F1. The performances are fine I guess, Brad Pitt does his usual charming older guy stuff and the supporting cast tries their best with the material they are given, they do shot the movie during actual races to make it feel real, they also shot it on McLaren HQ and use some of the rooms to make everything feel real but its more like a tourist trip to the McLaren building, but you can't polish a turd no matter how much money you spend on cinematography. They had all the resources and access it needed to create something special that could have introduced new fans to the sport while also satisfying existing enthusiasts, they had fkn Brad Pitt but instead they chose to play everything safe and generic, resulting in a movie that only might satisfied those who know nothing about F1, considering is a growing sport in America. The racing scenes look good enough if you don't think too hard about what you are seeing but the moment you start paying attention to the details you realize how little effort they actually put in understanding the sport they were trying to celebrate, which makes the whole experience feel hollow and disappointing. I give this movie a 7 out of 10, and that is being generous because at least it looks cool and there are adrenaline moments, but as an F1 fan I can't recommend this to anyone who actually cares about the sport because it will just make you mad about how wrong everything is.
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