The “F1” Reviews Are In

Following their massive success with “Top Gun: Maverick”, filmmaker Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are hoping that lightning will strike twice with the upcoming “F1” opening next Friday.

Switching the still rarefied world of fighter jets for the more ubiquitous if prestigious world of Formula One racing, the movie sees Brad Pitt play an F1 phenom sidelined decades earlier after a major accident who helps save a struggling team and mentor its young hotshot driver (Damson Idris).

With 82 reviews counted, the film sits at a very good 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic it’s a decidedly more average but still fairly decent 70/100.

Reviews paint it as an old school blockbuster with strong action if familiar story beats and cliches. Here’s a sampling of reviews:

“Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski does for cars what he previously did for fighter jets, transforming them into balletic machines that fly through the frame with unstoppable propulsion.” – Tim Grierson, Screen

“This what blockbusters used to look like. Come for the most impressive, lustrous car that a gajillion-dollar budget can buy. The reason to stay, however, is the driver.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“While Tom Cruise did already his big race car movie back in 1990, it’s easy to imagine him watching F1 and seething with jealousy. Because the racing sequences look like they were as thrilling to shoot as they are to watch.” – Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

“There’s a fair bit of macho silliness here, but the panache with which director Joseph Kosinski puts it together is very entertaining. Condon is a vital fuel ingredient and to a F1 non-believer like me, the result is surreal and spectacular.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“We go into “F1” excited about being excited, and the film makes good on that. It’s nothing if not an adrenaline high. Yet it’s a high that may leave you feeling a bit empty afterwards.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“Always entertaining for how effectively it welds hyper-modern spectacle to the chassis of a classic underdog story… but in working so hard to satisfy newbies and experts at the same time that it often struggles to seize on its simplest pleasures.” – David Ehrlich, Indiewire

“An old-school Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacular, albeit one that never deviates from a familiar summer blockbuster course and, consequently, fails to truly kick into adrenalized overdrive.” – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

“While director Joseph Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda can certainly shoot cars as well as they can planes, F1 represents the spiritually bone-dry, abrasive inverse to all of Maverick’s giddy pleasures.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

“While Top Gun: Maverick was a masterpiece that pulled viewers into events in and out of the cockpit, F1 is simply a competently assembled collection of underdog sports-drama clichés. It never convinces you that its protagonists are human beings.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC

“An incredibly sterile film about virility. It’s so manly it can barely perform.” – William Bibbiani, The Wrap

Oscar winner Javier Bardem, Oscar nominee Kerry Condon, Emmy winner Tobias Menzies, Emmy nominee Sarah Niles, Kim Bodnia and Samson Kayo co-star in “F1 which opens in cinemas June 27th.

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