F1® The Movie (PG13)

Starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

A Formula One race car is essentially an F-14 fighter jet on land, so it’s no surprise that Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is tackling a film about the speed demons of the eponymous motor racing league.

Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, an erstwhile racer — “the best that never was” — who’s recruited by his former teammate (Javier Bardem), now the beleaguered boss of Apex, a fictional F1 team stuck in a losing streak. Key to rebooting Apex’s mojo is Hayes mentoring rookie hotshot (Damson Idris) into becoming a team player.

Part underdog story, part comeback saga, part mentor-protégé drama (and all F1 commercial), F1 has a lot going on, which explains its two-and-a-half-hour runtime — longer than an actual Grand Prix!

The good news is, it doesn’t feel the length; it cruises along with, to quote one character, a restless “punk rock” energy. It doesn’t go too deep — just enough not to get in the way of its popcorn thrills.

If anything, it plays like a cinematic coffee table book — slick, shallow, and made for skimming — with Pitt on almost every other page, to the point of idolatry. (If you’re craving more meat and potatoes, check out the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive — which, by the way, gets name-checked in a quirky meta moment.)

Still, the real raison d’être here is the immersive racing action, which, needless to say, must be experienced on the biggest screen possible. Watching it on a TV — or, God forbid, your phone — would rob those sequences of their majestic ferocity. (3/5 stars) out in cinemas

Photo: Warner Bros Pictures/Apple Original Films