First Tom Cruise as a fighting pilot, which accelerates in real jets except for Mach 1.6-now Brad Pitt as a racing driver who threw the straight real Grand Prix lines along with “just”: In advance, it almost looked like Jerry Bruckheimer had his mega productions “Top Gun 2: Maverick” and “F1 – the film“Deleted in a wrong order-after all, the“ Curse of the Caribbean ”star producer is not exactly known for walking from the gas between its films. But puff cake!
Because as far as the pure high-speed thriller is concerned, the two films actually hardly take anything, just like with the story, which remains primarily to the purpose and that is best just without much thinking. Adrenaline junkies and asphalt cowboys get their money's worth, especially in IMAX format. And even without petrol in the blood you get more than two and a half hours of asteep blockbuster entertainment on “F1-The Film”. Especially since the Apple production still has a large number of corners and edges despite the close cooperation with Formula 1.
For his ex-rival Ruben (Javier Bardem), Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) will be happy to return to Formula 1 again.
The ex-racing driver Ruben (Javier Bardem) only stays for half a season: two and a half years ago he founded the Formula 1 racing team APXGP-and now he is lost with $ 350 million and without presentable success. If the team does not stop at least one win by the end of the season, he gets rid of his job. So he dares a last Hail-Mary pass out of pure despair:
In addition to the talented, but still inexperienced rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) should take a seat in the team's second car for the remaining races. The special thing about it: The Sunnyboy is already fifty-and has not been lived behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car in the nineties since a devastating crash in the nineties …
An access that has never been seen before
The fact that Jerry Bruckheimer, as a producer of “Top Gun”, “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down”, maintains the best contact with the US military, you know: If he needs a jet or an aircraft carrier, it will probably be put on his front door right tomorrow morning! And apparently he has now succeeded in a very similar coup in Formula 1: for “F1-The Film”, re-staged by “Top Gun 2” director Joseph Kosinski, the team was given access that other productions would probably not even dare to.
In the 2023/24 season, the film crew should travel from races from the start in Silverstone-more or less like a normal Formula 1 team. Because of the actor strike in the USA, everything was delayed unplanned, but Brad Pitt and Damson Idris were officially included in the paddock after a month -long training session. So they mixed u. In the press zone, at the award ceremony, but also in the starting line -up under the real drivers.
Above all, the racing scenes from the egopher perspective are particularly spectacular!
The seven-fold world champion Lewis Hamilton, which is involved as a producer, meanwhile took care of the most authentic implementation of the racing scenes: With real Formula 2 cars, which were converted by Mercedes so that they now look deceptive in the film, the actors or their stunt drivers in risky maneuvers-and reach up to 15 integrated cameras per car Breathtaking level of authenticity. Because Hayes is also polished for attack, the pulse in the hairpin curves is guaranteed to skyrocket.
Speaking of attack: As was expected from such a Formula 1 cooperation, the racing scenes not only look spectacular, but also after pure high gloss. Nice side effect: The advertising imprints on the fictitious APXGP cars brought in very real dollars-and so before the theatrical start, a not small part of the insane budget of rumored $ 300 million brought back in. With such smooth surfaces, of course you have to be careful that the whole film does not seem too smooth. But don't worry, because that's exactly where Sunny Hayes' aggressiveness comes into play!
Mr. Safetycar
In any case, we wonder how exactly the Formula 1 managers really read the script in advance? Finally, the aging protagonist initially helps his team primarily by causing collisions at the right moment and thus provoking Safetycar phases, which in turn rinses a few places to rinse a few places to his younger colleague. This has little or nothing to do with Fair Play, but you still keep your fingers crossed.
This also has a significant contribution to doing Brad Pitt: he finally replaced the passionate intuition with cool mathematics as a team manager in “The Art – Moneyball” – and we have cheered it on. In “F1-The Film” he drives through the area in an old surfer van, always looking for the next high-speed kick-with a body that has to be constantly cured in the ice pool, but thanks to all the tattoos and scars, many in the audience probably only seems hotter.
Brad Pitt and Kerry Condon should also turn a Screwball comedy together.
The chemistry between the Oscar winners Brad Pitt (for “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”) and Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”) is great-but nothing compared to the chemistry between Brad Pitt and Kerry Condon (Oscarnomial for “The Banshees of Inisherin”) as the first female technology chief of the Formula 1 story. The crops between the two are even so charming that it seems so charming that it seems amazingly little cringe when the two-despite 19 years of age difference-naturally end up in bed at some point.
Conclusion: The story of “F1-The Film” is sometimes quite a blockbuster bullshit-somehow you have to bend that an ex-driver sits again in a Formula 1 cockpit with his mid-50s without it just appears ridiculous. But the mischievous smile of Brad Pitt, the driving score of Hans Zimmer and the breathtaking, never seen racing shots are nevertheless an absolutely podium -worthy combination. The only question is: Formula 1 really did a favor to support the film so extensively? Because in direct comparison with this IMAX gigantism, the real races on the small television stink pretty much …