My Honest Thoughts on F1: The Movie

For the past few years, whilst we’ve been watching Max Verstappen dominate, McLaren climb from the bottom to the top, and seen shock moves involving the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz, Apple Studios and Warner Bros have been making a Movie about a sport that all of us love! It’s been massively hyped up, with Brad Pitt starring whilst Joseph Kosinski directed the Film, the same guy that did Top Gun: Maverick (one of the most successful films of all time)! The Soundtrack for this movie was also a big deal, with Hans Zimmer composing the music, a guy famous for his work in the likes of The Lion King, The Dark Knight trilogy, and Dune (and so many more)! There were also big artists involved too, with Ed Sheeran, Tate McRae, Rose, and Doja Cat all getting involved! Anyway, as someone who has been watching this sport since 2013/14, I thought I would give my thoughts on the Movie because it’s been a huge talking point in the world of Formula 1, and people seem to want to know my opinion (for some unknown reason)! What I thought I would do is I’m going to break things down into bits I liked and bits I didn’t like, from anything to do with the Film, and of course, there will be some spoilers because it’s a Film Review! The best part about this though is this is all opinionated, so you could go and see F1 and think the opposite way to me, and that is totally fine! So yeah, let’s dive into it!

Credit: F1

Things I Liked: The Racing Scenes

I guess we start with the main thing, and that is the Racing scenes themselves! I thought it was amazing, watching this on a big IMAX screen was pretty surreal, it was literally like watching a Formula 1 Race on the big screen, and that is pretty cool for someone who’s probably watched well more than 200 Races by now! The scenes were shot so well, it felt like you were in the car at times, I was thoroughly impressed! The racing itself was great, it was scenes taken from real-life Races meaning these scenes were sort of built around the actual sport that we’ve been watching, and that is awesome! I also think the crashes weren’t too bad, like yes they were a little extreme, but it’s also motorsport, we see horrible crashes a lot, so it’s not a big thing! I actually will go more into detail with that in a bit because that deserves it’s own whole section, but yeah, if you just love cars going quickly, go see this at the cinema, it’s absolutely insane!

Credit: PetaPixel

Things I Didn’t Like: The Story Surrounding APXGP

APXGP were the newest team in Formula 1, with Brad Pitt joining the team midway through their third season! At this point, APX hadn’t scored a single point in their entire Formula 1 existence, let alone scored a Win or a Podium! However, the owner of the team, Ruben Cervantes (played by Javier Bardem), was in a situation where if he didn’t win a Race within 3 seasons, the board could force a sale! That results in the plot of the movie being that APXGP has to win a Race by the end of the season in order for everyone to keep their jobs! What didn’t make any sense about this was why would Ruben agree to something like that, we see it in real life with the likes of Williams and Aston Martin that it takes years to get to the top, so why would the performance clause be based on winning, rather than just scoring points (or at a stretch a Podium)?! What also made no sense is one of the first things that Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris) said to Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt’s character) was “How many Races have you won?”, like come on, Gabriel Bortoleto would not ask Nico Hulkenberg that considering where Kick Sauber are at right now! Probably the worst example of this was in a Press Conference, Will Buxton asked about the fact that APXGP still hasn’t won a Race, and I’m sorry, but that would never happen to a team at the back of the Grid, it doesn’t make any sense!

Things I Liked: The Cinematography

Whilst we’ve already talked about the Racing scenes themselves, I actually want to dive more into how it was done, because that was the thing that impressed me the most whilst watching this Movie! See, this was the 2023 Formula 1 Season, and what it meant is we got multiple moments that happened in real-life happening here, whether that be the two Alpines’ crashing into each other at Turn 1 in Hungary, or Sergio Perez’s terrible incident at Mexico City! When it came to the side-by-side action, they put the APXGP car over a real-life car, for example, they replaced Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari at Monza in order to have a fight with Max Verstappen, and they also replaced Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes to overtake Charles Leclerc at Mexico! As a massive nerd and lover of this sport, this was so cool, because I could notice it and knew what was going to happen next, I fully clocked on what was happening at Japan when Hayes went around the outside of Yuki Tsunoda into the degnas (something Liam Lawson actually pulled off)! Not only was this cool, but it was incredibly well done, another brilliant bit of work from the editing team!

Things I Didn’t Like: Sonny Hayes’ Driving

We see a lot of times in recent Formula 1 that it takes a driver a while to adapt, sometimes forever in the case of the Red Bull second seat, but even strong drivers like Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz have needed time to truly get their best out of a car! However, that wasn’t really the case for Sonny Hayes as he was straight away close enough in time to teammate Joshua Pearce, and considering Pearce was this up-and-coming Rookie, I’m not sure that should’ve happened! You’ve then got Sonny’s recklessness, whether that be taking his time to start the Formation Lap, or bringing out about 3 Safety Car’s in Hungary, like that shouldn’t happen, I’d hope someone would be disqualified for that if they did that in real life! I know the team was desperate, but the fact that they were happy to blatantly cheat at times to perform well isn’t exactly the best underdog story!

Things I Did Like: The Music

Some of my favourites movies are ones with dramatic scores and soundtracks, whether that be The Lion King, Star Wars, La La Land, or even How To Train Your Dragon, all of those movies are amazing because of the instrumental music behind them! In this film, Hans Zimmer does an amazing job with the score, it really keeps you invested, and it fits well with what’s actually going on! The songs themselves are also decent, “Drive” by Ed Sheeran is used well in the end-credit scene whilst both “Messy” (by Rose) and “Just Keep Watching” (by Tate McRae) are also used at fitting points! I also thought I’d be sick of hearing Tate’s song because I’ve heard it so much, but it was actually alright, so that tells you that the music was strong!

Credit: Billboard Philippines

Things I Didn’t Like: The Character of Joshua Pearce

There were some good characters in this Film, in terms of how they were overall, and then there was Joshua Pearce! Now firstly, Damson Idris was not the problem here, he played the role as well as he could, he really suited the role, and to have black representation in a Film like this is really important, so I’m very glad he was in it! In fact, the one (tiny) scene Idris has with Lewis Hamilton is actually one of my favourites of the entire movie, it’s so simple, but it lands really hard! The problem is the rest of the character is floored, there’s a scene in the movie where Pearce and Hayes come together, and Joshua decides to smile about this in front of the cameras like he’d just been the Driver of the Day! Also, JP (the nickname Hayes gives to him) is so mad at the fact that Sonny Hayes is getting a shot in the car, and that doesn’t make any sense either because this was a good thing for Pearce because given how confident he was, he should’ve felt like this was going to be a cakewalk! I don’t know, I just felt that out of all of the main characters, Joshua Pearce was the one with the most flaws, his whole persona was that he was an arrogant and confident Rookie, and yet we didn’t even find out how he did in Formula 2, or even about his Dad who died when he was 13 (something that could’ve easily been expanded upon)!

Credit: Entertainment Weekly

Things I Liked: The Acting

In terms of the acting itself, I thought it was quite good! I thought Javier Bardem played Ruben Cervantes very well, I thought Kerry Condon was a really good choice for Kate McKenna, the first-ever female technical director (oh and trust me, we’ll delve more into her later)! Brad Pitt, the guy who this entire Film was centered and based around, is very good, you can tell he’s enjoying doing it, that he’s so passionate, and that is pretty awesome! Now, whilst I didn’t like his character that much, I still thought Damson Idris was good, I’d really like to see some more things with him in, and Sarah Niles was also great, she played Bernadette Pearce (Joshua’s mother), and she’s very good at going from being a bit comedic to full-on serious mode! Also, shoutout to Kim Bodnia because he played Kaspar Smolinski (APX’s Team Principal) perfectly, really charismatic, and exactly what we’ve come to see out of the likes of Fred Vasseur and Guenther Steiner!

Credit: F1

Things I Liked, and Also Didn’t Like: Watching it as a Formula 1 Fan

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “What happened to only talking either positive or negative?” Well, that’s because I had both positive and negative thoughts whilst watching this Film as a Formula 1 Fan! I think this was always going to be the thing that was going to be hard to ignore if you’ve watched the sport for a long time, or even just got super into it over the last couple of years (which is most of my friends), and the negatives are there are a lot of moments that don’t make sense, or aren’t realistic! For example, in Monza, both Joshua Pearce and Max Verstappen decide to stay on dry tyres, claiming they can still make it to the end without having problems! This would never happen, you would lose like 15 to 20 seconds a lap between the dry’s and the intermediate tyres, that’s how wet it was, and also, if we really want to be realistic, the FIA would’ve Red Flagged this because we know what they’re like when precipitation decides to appear! There’s also the fact that APXGP go from a team incapable of scoring points for 2 and a half years to challenging a 2023 Red Bull car, like come on! I know McLaren rose very highly in that same season, but that’s a team with a massive history and backing, I don’t think APX really had that at all, and I’m not sure that worked. Honestly, there are so many things I could point out, but they’re the ones that feel most prominent in my mind!

However, like I said, there are also some positives of watching this Film as a Formula 1 Fan! Mostly, the Easter Eggs! I absolutely love Pixar, and part of the reason for that is because of all of the Easter Eggs, and this film has a lot if you’re into F1! This is one of the things I won’t go too much into detail with, because I genuinely think this is a part of the movie that you have to experience watching yourself, not reading first, but there are so many things that you will spot that people who aren’t into F1 won’t, whether that be to do with the tracks, the scenes, even involving the main characters, like it’s really cool!

Things I Like: The Real-Life F1 Crossovers

With this being an official film based on Formula 1, there were always going to be crossovers with the real-life sport, and I think this was one of the best things about the entire movie! The whole intro at Silverstone is great, it’s so cool when Sonny and Joshua are standing next to Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez! Toto Wolff has his own lines, as does Zak Brown and Fred Vasseur, and even Lawrence Stroll’s in it, I thought that was really cool! I’ve already mentioned the little bit between JP and Lewis Hamilton, that was awesome, but there’s another big after Hungary where Fernando Alonso shows respect to Brad Pitt, and that was so well done! I mean, Hayes had just come off the back of doing whatever it takes to help his teammate succeed, at Hungary, and Alonso liked that, that’s brilliant! I also really liked that Sonny Hayes kept fighting Kevin Magnussen, too uber aggressive drivers, I thought that was the perfect choice! It was honestly all really cool, getting to see drivers I’ve watched for years (and some for over a decade) in a Movie, at the cinema, yeah it was insane!

Things I Didn’t Like: Female Representation

Now we get to my least favourite thing of this entire Movie, and that is Female Representation! Now, I know I said liked Bernadette Pearce’s character, but she was ultimately just a Mom, she didn’t have anything to do with APXGP in terms of working or developing the car! The two women that did where Kate McKenna, Technical Director, and Jodie, who was part of the pit crew! Starting with Jodie (played by Callie Cook), she was very shy, very anxious, and the first time we see her is bumping into Joshua Pearce, in what was a very awkward interaction! The next big thing Callie does is mess up a pit stop, resulting in an incredibly slow pit time which angered Pearce immensely! In fact, when Damson Idris finds out it was her, his response was “of course”! Why did they have to portray Jodie as being useless, like why?! And then we get on to Kerry Condon’s character Kate McKenna, now Kate was very good at her job, yes APX had been struggling for years, but you could tell she knew what she was doing! Also, I thought Condon spoke really well, like I think she played her role really well, but sadly, we have to talk about this stupid love story! Now I love a good love story, it can be so well done, but this was not the film for this to happen, let alone with not just the most important women in the film, but one of the most important roles of any team! Basically, Kate and Sonny Hayes flirt throughout the movie, they clearly like each other, and then they end up sleeping together in Vegas! This was so, so unbelievably unprofessional, and absolutely stupid! Rather than portray McKenna as this amazing role model who’s breaking down barriers for young women/girls around the world, she was Brad Pitt’s love interest who just so happened to also be the team’s technical director! Like come on, it’s so poor, it made them all look stupid, like I couldn’t believe it, especially as it was so unnecessary! Formula 1 has grown so much in recent years when it comes to female representation, whether that’s to do with Laura Muller now being Esteban Ocon’s Race Engineer, women like Natalie Pinkham and Laura Winter being part of broadcast teams, or simply F1 Academy! However, this film felt like it was really outdated, and yet it came out a week ago! By far the worst thing in this Movie!

Credit: RNZ

Things I Liked: The Start and the Finish

Two of the most important parts of any movie is the beginning and the end, it sets the tone for what you’re about to watch, and it also gives you that final feeling when you leave the cinema/your sofa! It’s massive, as a Wrestling fan that is how every show is structured, you want to start and end in the best way possible, and I thought F1 did just that! I don’t want to fully give this part away, I know that might seem weird, but this is another thing that I think people need to experience for themselves, it was so different and unexpected, but also amazing! It visually looked incredible, the first part of this film has some of the best-looking scenes in the entire Movie, and it was actually the thing I liked most about Sonny Hayes’ character, he was very Max Verstappen-like in that sense!

Final Verdict

Overall, I would definitely say that F1: The Movie is worth watching! I think there are a lot of things you can critique about this movie, especially if you’re a female, because from that side it’s just not good enough! However, the music is great, the racing scenes are amazing, and as F1 fans, that’s what we love! I enjoyed the Film a lot more than I expected to, mainly because I was watching Sonny Hayes race Max Verstappen, on a huge screen at a Cinema, like 9-year-old Linus would’ve never have expected that, so from that side it is amazing! I’d really like to watch this with non-F1 fans, who genuinely don’t know anything about the sport, I think that would fascinate me, but I know that the people reading this are just like me, we all love F1 and watch it every weekend, and from that side I’d say it’s worth giving a go!

Credit: F1