When we last saw filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, he directed 2022’s massive hit sequel Top Gun: Maverick, a story of an aging pilot forced to come back and educate the next generation before he gets called into active duty himself. Kosinski returns via 2025’s F1: The Movie, a story of an aging racecar driver forced to come back and educate the next generation before he gets called into active duty himself.

Hmm.

Once a promising racecar driver, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) now lives a vagabond life in that sport. When his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) recruits him to help a struggling Formula 1 squad, Sonny reluctantly agrees.

This places Sonny in double duty, as not only does he drive his own car for Ruben but also he needs to help train young racer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Sonny battles demons as he tries to achieve automotive greatness on the F1 circuit.

While my opening comparison of F1 to Maverick might seem snarky, it really does prove true. While I won’t call F1 a remake of the Top Gun sequel, the two come with more than a few similarities.

Both also offer comparable strengths and weaknesses. Like Maverick, F1 does well when it digs into action but it falters when it invests in narrative or characters.

That happens mainly because as implied, F1 never finds anything new to say. It spends enough time with the roles – especially Sonny – that it enjoys the potential breathing room to make them three-dimensional.

But it doesn’t. Sonny, Ruben, Joshua and even racing team technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) – a role that should break the mold – come across as trite.

Given the cast involved, this disappoints, though it doesn’t surprise. F1 does come from legendary popcorn producer Jerry Bruckheimer, so no one should expect Oscar-caliber depth.

Still, I would’ve appreciated something more than the tired tale of the aging veteran who seeks redemption and the young talent who needs discipline. Even if we ignore Maverick, that plot got old a long time ago, and F1 never finds anything new to do with the themes.

As noted, the biggest letdown here comes from the thin use of Condon’s Kate, as the female in a man’s world offers intrigue. Unfortunately, Kate barely exists as anything more than an obvious eventual love interest for Sonny, so she doesn’t live up to the role’s potential.

At least Kate develops into a stronger personality than the Top Gun’s Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly), a romantic foil so unnecessary that the film could lose her scenes and not suffer at all. Kate enjoys more prominent plot involvement so trite as her development may become, the movie manages to give her something to do beyond become the apple of Sonny’s eye.

Compared to Maverick, F1 enjoys a superior cast, mainly thanks to the presence of Pitt as the lead. Oh, we get a fine group of supporting actors as well, but Maverick prospered in that realm as well, so F1 fails to enjoy a clear advantage there.

However, Pitt delivers a significant upgrade compared to Cruise, mainly thanks to the latter’s apparent inability these days to play anything beyond the Tom Cruise Character. While Cruise used to show good range, he became frozen in heroic amber a good 10 to 15 years ago, and Maverick remained in that category.

Although Pitt can fall back on his own stock persona, he seems less attached to that than Cruise is to his standard role. That means Sonny comes across as more human and engaging than Maverick, even if Pitt never quite breaks a sweat in the role.

Based on the one-two punch of Maverick and F1, I feel tempted to label Kosinski as a director who does well with action but not with story or characters. However, even if his 2010 debut Tron: Legacy hinted at style over substance, Kosinski’s 2013 Oblivion and 2017 Only the Brave managed emotional punch along with thrills, so I can’t typecast him.

Too bad that F1 reminds me more of the empty calories found in Tron: Legacy than the heart seen in Oblivion and Only the Brave. Not that we don’t care about F1’s characters, but we fail to bond with them beyond the generic sense.

At least Kosinski continues to show his skill with action scenes. F1 packs a slew of racing scenes and these live up to expectations.

When F1 sticks to the track, it thrills. When it goes into character or narrative domains, it falters.

Because we spend so much time on various racecourses, F1 keeps us engaged and mostly entertained, even if 155 minutes seems awfully long for a simple popcorn tale like this. Nonetheless, I wish the movie did more than just provide vivid driving scenes.

F1: The Movie appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. A true 4K product, the UHD offered exceptional visuals.

Sharpness excelled. No signs of softness materialized in this tight and accurate presentation.

The movie lacked jagged edges and moiré effects, and it also failed to suffer from edge haloes. Print flaws didn’t mar the film.

F1 opted for a fairly desaturated palette, one without many bright hues. Though this left matters a bit flat, the disc replicated the colors as intended, and HDR brought punch to occasional brighter tones.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while shadows were smooth and clear. Contrast and whites got a boost from HDR. This turned into a top-notch image.

Note that F1 ran at a 1.90:1 ratio on IMAX screens. Unfortunately, the 4K UHD lacked that version.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the movie’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack added pizzazz to the proceedings. As expected, the racing scenes offered the greatest sense of activity and involvement, as those used the vehicles to swarm and move around the room in an engulfing manner.

Other scenes created a good sense of the story as well. Most of the sequences focused on environmental information, but they still worked well and delivered a nice experience.

Audio quality succeeded as well, with natural, concise dialogue. Music seemed full and rich.

Effects appeared accurate and distinctive, with nice low-end response. The soundtrack suited the film and added excitement.

The disc comes with a bunch of featurettes, and Inside the F1 Table Read goes for five minutes, 10 seconds. It involves consultant Will Buxton, director Joseph Kosinski, and actors Abdul Salis, Damson Idris, Callie Cooke, Joseph Balderrama, Sarah Niles, Kerry Condon, Samson Kayo, Tobias Menzies, Brad Pitt, Will Merrick, Javier Bardem and Kim Bodnia.

The program looks at the cast meetup and initial interactions - well, in theory. In reality, "Read" just offers a lot of praise for everyone involved, so we learn next to nothing of use here.

The Anatomy of a Crash runs six minutes, 28 seconds. We get thoughts from Kosinski, Idris, special effects supervisor Keith Dawson and supervising stunt coordinator Gary Powell.

As implied, the reel offers some insights related to a major stunt sequence. Unfortunately, we get little depth here.

Next comes Getting Up to Speed. This one spans five minutes, two seconds and delivers remarks from Idris, Powell, Pitt, Kosinski, additional sequence choreographer Craig Dolby, action vehicle supervisor Graham Kelly, producers Lewis Hamilton and Jerry Bruckheimer, cast and stunts physio Barry Sigrist, and actor/lead sequence supervisor Luciano Bacheta.

Via "Speed", we dig into how the actors trained to perform as racecar drivers. We find a few interesting nuggets and a whole lot of fluff.

Innovations occupies five minutes, 26 seconds. It provides thoughts from Kosinski, Bruckheimer, Dolby, Dawson, executive producer Tim Bampton, production sound mixer Gareth John, RF technicians Alistair Horne and Greg Johnson, director of photography Claudio Miranda, A Camera 1st assistant Dan Ming, and F1 stunt racing driver Erich Joiner.

Like the title hints, "Innovations" discusses new technical developments featured in the film. Unsurprisingly, it offers another triumph of self-congratulation over information,

With Making It to Silverstone, we find a five-minute, eight-second featurette. We locate statements from Pitt, Idris, Kosinski, Bruckheimer, Hamilton, Bampton, Condon, Bardem, Menzies, Miranda, Balderrama, Merrick, and Bodnia.

We visit the iconic British Grand Prix location and hear about shooting there - barely. Again, we get another piece with lots of happy talk and little concrete info.

Producer fills five minutes, 18 seconds. It boasts notes from Kosinski, Hamilton, Bruckheimer, Pitt, and Condon.

The program covers the movie's involvement of legendary Formula One driver Hamilton in the film. By now you shouldn't need me to tell you we don't learn much of value here, but I will because that's my job.

After this we head to Around the World, In this nine-minute, 26-second segment, we hear from Kosinski, Pitt, Bampton, Idris, Bruckheimer, Hamilton, Bardem, supervising location manager Charlie Hayes, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, production designer Ben Munro and Williams Racing Team principal James Vowles.

Via "World", we find out about sets and locations. Expect a lot more self-praise along with a handful of decent notes.

How It Was Filmed takes up five minutes, 45 seconds. We find material from Bampton, Kosinski, Bruckheimer, Idris, Hamilton, Bardem, Cooke, Kelly, Condon and Pitt.

"Filmed" discusses some basics about shooting racing scenes. Unfortunately, it offers yet another puffy reel without much true substance.

Finally, Sound of Speed lasts five minutes, one second. The show involves Bruckheimer, Kosinski, Hamilton and composers Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro.

Like the title hints, "Speed" digs into the film's score. It finishes the extras on another sub-mediocre note, as it continues the streak of fluffy featurettes.

Boy, this compilation of featurettes really does disappoint. We get nearly 53 minutes of video content but only maybe 10 minutes of useful information - and that might offer a generous estimate.

Basically “Top Gun: Maverick With Cars”, F1: The Movie becomes a derivative affair. Even with its predictable nature, a combination of good cast and lively racing scenes makes it reasonably entertaining. The 4K UHD offers terrific picture and audio but its supplements seem maddeningly superficial. This becomes an excellent reproduction of an inconsistent movie.