Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer re-team from Top Gun: Maverick. That movie was credited with salvaging the post-COVID cinematic landscape, how will they fare with their journey into the world’s most prestigious motor racing series? F1 opens at the end of this week in theaters, and it currently sits at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
What are the reviewers saying about it?
“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
“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
“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 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
“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
That final review echoes one complaint that a number of people seem to have had with the movie – that it is male-centric and macho, giving female characters very little to do. It’s almost as if it is set in one of the most technical, technically competitive, and male dominated sports there is.
Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles, Kim Bodnia, and Samson Kayo all co-star in F1.
