F1® The Movie (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Jun 18
3 min read

F1® THE MOVIE (2025)

Starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Shea Whigham, Joseph Balderrama, Sarah Niles, Samson Kayo, Callie Cooke, Will Merrick, Layne Harper, Simone Ashley, Abdul Salis, Guenther Steiner, Benoît Tréluyer, Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr.

Screenplay by Ehren Kruger.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski.

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. 153 minutes. Rated PG-13.

“Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.” Aldous Huxley

Formula One racing is definitely fast, and it is certainly modern. The pleasure aspect is more problematic, or so it seems from F1® The Movie. For these drivers, speed is a drug, a need, and sometimes a harsh mistress. Yet, they will never walk away, even when it is not necessarily in their best interests, physically or mentally.

F1® The Movie is as fast and sleek as one of its cars, but occasionally it has trouble on the curves. It’s fun and propulsive but totally predictable, in both good ways and bad ways. Perhaps you’ve seen it all before, but rarely has it been done this stylishly.

It’s the old sports movie storyline of an aging star athlete running up against (figuratively and sometimes literally) the young hot shot. You know where this is going. You also know who is going to be the bad guy from the first time he appears on screen, and same with the potential romantic interest. (Although in that case, he is a she.)

Yet, F1® The Movie is a lot of fun, although, for a film that is so obsessive about speed, at 153 minutes, it runs a little long.

The aging pro is Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a past-his-prime (but still extremely handsome) former F1 wunderkind who now is a bit of a racing nomad – living in his van and taking on pretty much any race that will allow him to participate, anything from the Daytona 500 to Baja off-road racing. His only rule is that no matter how well or poorly he does, he will not stick around on the scene. The scene that he has strayed farthest from is the Formula One circuit, which he hasn’t participated in since he was a young hotshot and nearly died in a fiery crash.

He is brought back into Formula One by Ruben (Javier Bardem), an old friend and nemesis from the F1 days who now is an exec, running a racing team which has been losing for a few years now. Unless the team turns things around, Ruben will lose his team, which has been his life’s work. So he hopes that Sonny can be his secret weapon as the team travels the globe to take on some of the biggest races in the world. He has a dedicated group of employees who mostly want to save the team, although someone seems to be sabotaging things.

The new hotshot is Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a talented rookie that will be the future of the team – if there is a team – if he learns strategy and to gauge risks. However, he’s a bit full of himself and impatient to become a star, not just in racing but in general.

However, the storyline is not really what is important here. It is the racing footage (often quite stunning) and the luxurious settings (also, mostly stunning). The actors are also mostly stunning, which was undoubtedly the plan, but also a nice bonus.

F1® The Movie is much like the sport that it celebrates, almost always moving laps around the same courses but when it slows down it’s a bit more complex than you would guess on the surface.

Jay S. Jacobs