I heard a lot about “F1 The Movie” (“F1”) before I actually watched it. I had a lot of engagement with the stunning soundtrack, but I confess I wasn’t too interested in actually watching the movie and only ended up doing so because one of my friends wanted to. But I think this was probably one of the more enjoyable releases of 2025, and it’s decently popular, so overall it’s worth taking another look at.

“F1” follows Sonny Hayes, a former prodigy of Formula One who is coaxed out of semi-retirement by an old friend to help save a struggling F1 team, which needs to win a race (I won’t be using F1 terminology because I’m not familiar with it) to stay afloat as a team. The conflict centers on his relationship and friction with the world, the team and himself. Most notably, the dynamic between him and the young hotshot on the team, Joshua Pearce, is the central core of the film.

So “F1” is pretty enjoyable. It’s not boring, and the plot smartly keeps things simple instead of trying to tangle too much at once. It’s a racing film packed with action, as well as tropes: the mentor-mentee relationship, a once-prodigy, past regrets and trauma, and passion. It’s well done for what it’s trying to achieve, which is to be an entertaining movie, nothing more and nothing less. There’s just enough meaning packed in the action to keep the watcher grounded in the world of the movie, but not too much: the writers likely realized they weren’t trying to make a masterpiece here, and more often than not, writers try to create masterpieces and fail. So I think keeping the ambition lower here was a good thing, and it worked well. 

The highlight of the film comes with the spectacle. Obviously, this is a film about racing; about really fast cars. And indeed, most of the narrative beats are centered on a race. “F1” is really great at getting you in the visceral thrill of racing; turning up the tension where needed to, tightly maneuvering through the scene with precise, immersive cinematography. To put it simply, it was fun to watch, and clearly the film’s most impressive strength. For most movies, you don’t need to watch them on IMAX. It’s just not really worth it. But for “F1,” watching this on IMAX is a really good decision; it was absolutely exhilarating. 

On a side note about the cars, if you are a hardcore F1 fan and want to watch this movie because of that, I’d tell you not to get your hopes up. Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, names like this, show up a few times, and it’s fun. The film isn’t entirely accurate to racing, though, and honestly the racing is not a huge part of the narrative. 

Otherwise, I think most aspects of the film are solid. Each actor performed pretty well. Nothing amazing, but good; especially Brad Pitt, who gives a very grounded and gritty quality to his character. The movie can also be pretty funny at times, and it has a very good soundtrack. Some critics, I’ve read, seem to think it drags, but in truth, unless you have a very low attention span or are looking at the movie through a critical lens, you likely won’t find an issue with the pacing. 

While I did mention how I like how, to put it a little crudely, unambitious the movie is, I think it could’ve gone even more unambitious. There was a little romance side-plot that kind of added things to the movie and its depth, but not really. It likely would’ve worked better to focus solely on the relationship between Hayes and Pearce. Not everything needs romance in it, and while the romance doesn’t really detract from the film — at best, it’s sort of interesting and at worst, it’s a vaguely annoying side plot — “F1” could have been better without it. There then would have been a significantly larger amount of time to devote to the real emotional core of the film (which is the mentor-mentee relationship). 

But the most glaring issue of the film is that it’s, to put it bluntly, stereotypical and unoriginal. Each beat falls into a cookie-cutter copy-paste script line that has been done a thousand times before. There are simply no surprises. Each trope is tried and true, no extra spin on it whatsoever. Even the parts that are supposed to be shocking or make you emotional don’t really work, because at the core of it all, I’ve seen this same movie in probably eleven other fonts before. 

And so at its core, “F1” isn’t really about the racing or the story. It’s about the Hollywood sheen and gloss, the commercial polish slathered all over. There is nothing remotely fresh, daring or nuanced about it. And it’s fine. It’s honestly a very decent movie. It’s fun and entertaining to watch, it’ll make you laugh and it probably might move you at points. But if you’re looking for anything deeper than a way to pass the time or a brief moment of fun, “F1” might not be for you.