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F1: The Movie Review: Technical Excellence, But Your Mileage May Vary

F1: The Movie is a technical marvel, but the decision to lean into the all too familiar tropes of the genre is going to be hit or miss with people, depending on what they are expecting.

F1: The Movie is visually stunning and a technical achievement unlike anything we've seen in a long time, but the mileage you'll get from the story will vary depending on whether you think the usual tropes for a sports movie are a feature or a bug.

Director: Joseph Kosinski
Summary: A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.

F1: The Movie Leans Into Every Trope Of The Genre

When Top Gun: Maverick finally made its way to theaters after many pandemic delays, one of the things that really impressed audiences was how the film managed to really capture what it felt like to be inside a fighter plane. Director Joseph Kosinski managed to capture some truly insane footage on the set of that film, and even if you weren't into the story of Top Gun: Maverick, there was no denying the technical achievements. So when it was announced that Kosinski would be directing a movie about FORMULA 1, we knew he was going to deliver something technically cool. F1: The Movie is making its way to the big screen next week, and there is absolutely no denying that it makes you feel like you're sitting inside one of these cars, as for everything else in the film, that might vary depending on what you want from this specific genre.

Tropes exist for a reason, and people go back to them time and time again because they work more often than they don't. Sports films tend to lean into tropes even more to the point that, on some levels, if you've seen a few, you've seen almost all of them. F1: The Movie hits all of the beats you're expecting from a sports film with perfect precision, but at the same time, it's very hard to say one way or another if this is a feature or a bug. It might depend on what you, personally, want out of a sports film. Some people could watch a million sports films telling the same story over and over again and never get tired of it. The predictable tropes of F1: The Movie would be a feature for that audience. However, someone who is sick of seeing the same thing over and over again would see the predictable story of F1: The Movie as incredibly boring and dull. Can you really harp on a sports film for doing exactly what every other sports film in the genre is doing? Is it like getting mad that a romantic comedy has a happy ending?

What everyone can get mad about is the barrier to entry. FORMULA 1 has been massive internationally for years, but has really only just started to gain an audience in the United States in the last couple of years. This new audience doesn't know all of the rules, the little details, what everything means, and what everyone is driving to accomplish aside from "make car go fast." What F1: The Movie could, and probably should, have done is make itself much more approachable for people just getting into the sport. In an attempt to really lean into realism, the film has also put up a gate between itself and people trying to get in for the first time by not explaining anything.

One must assume that one of the reasons this film exists at all is to get more people to watch FORMULA 1, but there isn't anything in F1: The Movie that would make the transition any easier for someone completely unfamiliar with the sport. I shouldn't need a friend to spend the entire drive home explaining how the point system works because no one in the film did. If one of the goals of this film was to bring in new fans, it won't accomplish anything, because it takes no time to be welcoming.

The Closest Most Of Us Will Get To Driving FORMULA 1

All of this is wrapped in a movie that is so technically stunning it's almost infuriating to watch. Everything between the races might be white noise, but once Kosinski straps those cameras to those cars and sends them out onto the track, whether or not you're invested in the characters really doesn't matter much one way or another. It's a race, and you're smack dab in the middle of it, you're on this ride, and you're racing to that finish line with the characters.

It's hard to truly capture speed on film, but Kosinski and his team really make you feel like you're right there, from the booming shakes of the sounds in the IMAX theaters that shake the floor to the multiple different first and third person point of views that make you feel like you're in the driver seat too. Kosinski has said that he took a lot of the techniques that he learned on Top Gun: Maverick, improved them, and then strapped them onto a racecar. The innovation that has come from F1: The Movie cannot be understated. Also, Ham Zimmer's soundtrack will become people's new workout movie soundtrack.

F1: The Movie is a technical marvel, but the decision to lean into the all too familiar tropes of the genre is going to be hit or miss with people, depending on what they are expecting. The most frustrating thing about the predictable and sometimes dull story is that this is a film that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, with speakers that can make walls shake. It's exactly what it says on the tin, for good and for ill, and the only thing that is unexpected about it is just how intense those races are, even if everything surrounding them could be left in the dust.

F1: The Movie

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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7/10

F1: The Movie is visually stunning and a technical achievement unlike anything we've seen in a long time, but the mileage you'll get from the story will vary depending on whether you think the usual tropes for a sports movie are a feature or a bug.

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