"You lose that lead, I'll kill you"
F1: The Movie (2025)
oK! Well! It was certainly a movie! jk lets actually talk about it.
There are two ways you can look at this movie, and depending on which way you will have very different opinions.
First: (the more obvious way) as a F1 fan. I was an F1 fan before I watched the movie, and a rather involved fan at that. I've spent a lot of time and money on watching, learning, and keeping up with the sport. I know the different team dynamics and legacies, I have my favorite drivers, I understand the (basic) technical aspects. And coming into the movie with that kind of knowledge and understanding of the sport, yeah it was pretty cringe. Being a legit fan makes you see the movie in a kind of one-shot, "POV you're an f1 driver", brad Pitt self-insert kind of way. There were inconsistencies based on filming restrictions. You could kind of tell the real drivers were just barely putting up with the movie. So on and so forth.
BUT! I don't think this movie is for those types of fans!!!
The REAL way this movie should be judged is through the eyes of the second type of movie goer: the one with very little knowledge of the sport.
If you look at this movie as someone who has never watched F1, or as someone who is really into Brad Pitt movies, or as someone who just wanted to see the new trending movie then it is actually a pretty good film.
The cinematography was beautiful. Shot for imax, from the creators of Topgun: Maverick, there is no doubt it was gorgeous. I really liked the almost faded? kinda? type of coloring the movie had. The "action" scenes of the cars racing were stunning. Truly it was just a pretty movie.
The "main" actors played their roles really well. Brad Pitt obvi did a great job (sorry love his movies) Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, etc they all did an amazing job. Sonny Hayes as a character was super interesting to me, with his past in the formulas, the crash, and the urge to race in other categories. Joshua Pearce in his quest to be THE driver he always saw himself to be. The actors did a great job at portraying the story they were given. Now, if the drivers were a little awkward in some of their scenes? Sure obvi they would be, this isn't their job.
The overall plot of the movie? It's exactly what you'd expect. Underdog gets a second chance. It is what everyone thought it would be, and it delivered. It could have been cool too see a new type of storyline but in all honesty, every single sport has a movie just like this. So for the first kinda fictional f1 movie, if it ain't broke don't fix it. In the future if the popularity of the sport grows it would be great to see more creative storylines, but that wasn't really the goal of this movie ya know.
okok I'm rambling. But all in all, this movie isn't bad. It isn't the best movie in the world, but it definitely has the feel of kinda a "classic" sports movie. The movie is getting a lot of hate early on from the F1 fans who know of the inaccuracies in the technical aspects. But if you look at this movie from the stance of the common fan, or new fan, or average movie goer? It is a pretty good movie.
Plus, this could be just the movie to get more people into watching the actual races :)