Movie Review: Joseph Kosinski’s ‘F1’ is a pure adrenaline rush

Joseph Kosinski’s F1 is a pure adrenaline rush. Everything that’s been lacking with studio releases this summer is finally achieved with a grand, traditional blockbuster in this new racing film.

This is the kind of major motion picture where it doesn’t matter if you’re interested in the main subject and are actually more likely to enjoy it with less knowledge of the sport. I never cared about NASCAR, Formula One, or any kind of professional racing, yet was on the edge of my seat for nearly all of F1.

If Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t already evidence that Tony Scott’s successor has been found in modern cinema, it’s confirmed here with the ultimate update on Scott’s Days of Thunder (1990).

In the professional racing world, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is nearing the end of his controversial legacy as a wild driver and is already seen as over-the-hill and too old to carry on publicly. But old driving buddy-turned-F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) suddenly offers Sonny the chance to be the second driver for his team, APXGP, so he doesn’t lose his biggest investor.

Reluctant at first, Sonny takes the deal and heads over to Silverstone, England, to train for the next global racing tour while simultaneously forming a rivalry with younger, hyped driving mate Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), and a romance with APXGP creative director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon).

Tobias Menzies co-stars as Ruben’s head advisor, Sarah Niles plays Joshua’s mother and manager, and Callie Cooke appears as the token female teammate. F1 is co-written by Kosinski and Ehren Kruger and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer as with TG: Maverick previously.

In typical Bruckheimer fashion, F1 is very much an action flick that doesn’t necessarily reinvent or add anything fresh to its genre but is executed well enough for general entertainment. The Sonny-Joshua pairing is the usual legend vs. rookie feud, and the plot follows recognizable adventure beats, although there is a slight unpredictable swerve with the ending. Most of the praise is, deservedly, going to the technical aspects, such as the stellar sound design, editing and camerawork.

Many critics have been making jokes comparing F1 to both Maverick and Days of Thunder, but I actually preferred the new film over the earlier two. All of the parts I found hokey about Maverick are less obvious here, and I much preferred the relationship between Sonny and Kate over Tom Cruise’s Maverick and Jennifer Connelly’s Penny in the Top Gun sequel.

My one big complaint for F1 is how the first half of the movie is filled with classic rock staples, but then the soundtrack completely switches to modern club music for the rest of the film. The change in genre doesn’t come off naturally and makes you wish they had stuck with one type of music for the whole feature.

Nonetheless, for a crowd-pleaser with fast, high-quality racing sequences and a charismatic, good-looking cast of characters, F1 is the perfect big screen experience for you.