F1 the Movie review – spectacular macho melodrama handles Brad Pitt with panache

The cherubic sixtysomething stars as a supercool old-school driver returning 30 years after a near-fatal crash to break all the rules of Formula One racingWith that amused-cowpoke face of his squashed into his safety helmet, making his sixtysomething cherubic chops bulge in towards his nose, Brad Pitt gets behind the wheel in this outrageously cheesy but fiercely and extravagantly shot Formula One melodrama. Along with a lot of enjoyable hokum about the old guy mentoring the rookie hothead (a plot it broadly shares with Pixar’s 2006 adventure Cars), F1 the Movie gives you the corporate sheen, real-life race footage with Brad as the star in an unreasonably priced car, the tech fetish of the cars themselves (almost making you forget how amazingly ugly they are) with brand names speckling every square inch of every surface, the simulation graphics writ large, and the bizarre occult spectacle of motor racing itself.This is a movie which (like Barbie) has been licensed by the brand, with Lewis Hamilton credited as a producer; he gets a stately walk-on and plenty of big names are glimpsed. At one stage, Brad notices Max Verstappen out there on the track: “Damn, he’s good!” he mutters. Oh sure, yes, Max Verstappen is good, but is he a reckless, intuitive risk-taker and old-school motor race romantic who might get himself killed chasing some undefinable something out there on the burning, shimmering tarmac? We may never know. Continue reading...

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