F1: THE MOVIE (2025)

Gotta give producer Jerry Bruckheimer (or one of this film’s thirty-three producers!) credit for truth in advertising with that title.  Not for the Formula One car; for the Formula One script.  It’s as formulaic as it gets.  Hokey, too, with Brad Pitt’s aging gadfly race car driver (with a past) signing on to help Javier Bardem’s struggling F1 team by playing rival, mentor & Zen Master to cocky star on the rise kid.  Kudos for the clean soundtrack (for once you can understand dialogue during the vroom-vroomy race sequences), everything else hash.  And must it feel so generic?  Even Brad Pitt looks generic handsome.  Brad Pitt!  Like others who might have played the part at some appropriate age.  Val Kilmer; the Bridges Brothers in their FABULOUS BAKER’S BOYS/’89 days.  Paul Newman at any time.  (Great messed-up short-shag hair, though.)  Plus, at 2.5 hours, sure feels like they’re stretching this one out to get in another day at the track.  Worst of all, they’ve wasted a favorite plotline; the one about an also-ran finally getting his shot at the big time, unaware he’s been hired not because someone thinks he can win, but because they’re sure he’ll lose; only to then turn the tables to show he’s had the right stuff all along.  (Think Jason Sudeikis in TED LASSO; Paul Newman in THE VERDICT.)  Here, it’s Pitt getting resurrected.  Or is it?  What with director Joseph Kosinski from TOP GUN: MAVERICK/’22 calling the shots (too many shots BTW), more likely the object of resurrection is the late Tony Scott, or at least his overly fussy directing style.  A tip of the hat toward the director of the original TOP GUN/’89.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Pitt gets a showy soliloquy, the one studio development types refer to as the Oscar® moment, with a needlessly long/over-articulate speech on being in ‘the zone,’ unnaturally calm in the middle of track chaos.  Yet, has any car racing film tried to put that meditative/slo-mo feel in the midst of a race on screen?  Common in other sports pics (sprinters, jockeys, batters, pitchers, goalies, oarsmen, even boxers), but car drivers?  Let us know of any examples in the COMMENT box.