F1: As Good a Summer Movie as They Get

F1 is an electric movie, the type that might make you tingle with adrenaline walking out of the theater. It's so electric, my theater decided to have an outage about two-thirds of the way through the movie. Luckily, the staff got the projector working again, so I didn't have a repeat of the live-action How To Train Your Dragon. The only reason I didn't post a review of that movie is because some kid pulled the fire alarm halfway through my screening, a possibility I might want to start considering when reviewing family films. Anyways, F1 is a grounded, character-driven, in-the-middle-of-the-action racing drama that will set your senses ablaze. It certainly lit mine on fire, and not since Ford v Ferrari has a sports movie done that to me in a way that almost makes me forget about two theater outages. Accidents happen in racing, and when speeding down a track in excess of 200 miles per hour, that's a weighty consideration. Thirty years ago, Sonny Hayes thought his racing career was finished after a horrific crash. But now, a struggling team with no race wins is putting its last-shot hope in Sonny to turn them around. He'll have to contend with a young driver named Joshua, whose ambitions may outweigh his consideration of others. And again, disagreements are not best solved when screaming down a track at speeds of over 200 miles per hour.

F1 is an old-fashioned racing story, a familiar-enough but ruthlessly high-octane film elevated by some excellent direction from Joseph Kosinski, who already showed us that he's more than capable of steering the actioner with his directorial work on the excellent Top Gun: Maverick. F1 isn't just fast. It's stylishly fast, bolstered by a fantastic original soundtrack that's a toe-tapping good time to listen to. The first thing I did when I got home was look up Bad As I Used To Be by Chris Stapleton, which you should do too. Of course, the biggest draw of this movie is its racing sequences, which I can assure you will not disappoint. They're fast, furious, dangerous, and placed firmly on the ground with Sonny, Joshua, and their fellow racers. There aren't as many God's eye shots in this movie as I'm used to seeing in a racing film, which lends a level of immersion to the races of F1 that I've rarely seen elsewhere.

The human drama of this movie remains interesting as F1 speeds up and slows down. The conflict between the aging Sonny and the headstrong Joshua threatens their entire team, and everything remains on the line until the end, where you'll let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. Shocking revelations are also along for the ride, as not everyone is who they seem to be, and neither does this movie always go how you think it will. And despite telling a story that's been told time and again, the tone of F1 can turn on you faster than a Formula One car. Still, its pacing remains consistent throughout. It's a slow crawl of gradual successes via lightning-fast racing toward what Sonny and his team can only hope is a win, at last. The ups and downs are out in force. The adrenaline is there. The rivalry is there. The only question remaining is what waits for us and our racers at the finish line?

Even if F1 may be the same type of team-focused movie you've seen time and again, its impeccable craftsmanship is unmistakable, its head-rush of adrenaline undeniable. Kosinski has been carving out a niche for himself in the camp of the crowd-pleasing action movie for some time now, and I won't have any complaints about him continuing his habits into the future so long as he can keep producing results like F1. Far exceeding my expectations, I'd go so far as to call it as close to a perfect modern summer blockbuster as they get. Heck, maybe only Top Gun: Maverick is closer to fulfilling that title. Is F1 a predictable movie? Yes. Is it formulaic? You bet. And can it be cheesy? Oh, boy. Nevertheless, you'll rejoice at the highs, fall silent in the lows, and more discerning audiences will also marvel at some of this movie's rapt attention to the details of its characters' lives. Cheesy or not, it perfectly captures the spirit of sport, as when your heroes lose, you feel it, but when they win, it makes all the hardship and heartbreak more than worth it.

F1 - 9/10

1 Corinthians 9:24-27