Seeing as a lot of us seem to have watched it by now it might be fun to talk about our thoughts. I’ll give a spoiler free review here and might go into more detail in the comments.
For me, the movie was almost exactly what I expected given the premise (Hollywood sports movie starring an aging Brad Pitt). But if you’re an F1 fan you don’t watch this for the story. Even then, there are some fanservice nods for us thrown in that I did smile at now and then, and even though the story takes a lot of liberties I was actually impressed at the amount of detail the movie goes into.
All that being said, you watch this for one reason alone: the shots of the racing. And they are spectacular. I wish they would linger a second or two longer instead of often jumping quickly between angles, but that’s my only criticism. They look fucking amazing and it is worth the price of admission. And do yourself a favour and watch it in IMAX. Some of those shots are just breathtaking.
Well, the story is not realistic at all. But at least it was believable to me, as in: it’s not completely impossible.
Combining tactical rule breaking and unsportsmanship with the most unusual accidents and incidents that have happened in F1 in recent years is… a choice. It makes good entertainment.
The story of Brad Pitt’s character himself and the rookie as well I actually enjoyed watching. Was surprised by that.