What is it about veteran actors and racing movies? With F1, Brad Pitt joins a club including James Garner in Grand Prix and Steve McQueen in Le Mans, old-timers out to prove they still have gas in the tank. At least in director Joseph Kosinski’s latest film, the star’s age discrepancy with the rest of the racers is addressed and made an essential part of the plot.
Buy F1 The Movie 4K UHDLike James Garner before him, Pitt did most of his own driving in the film, allowing for startlingly authentic racing footage prominently featuring his face. Pitt and young co-star Damson Idris trained for months on modified F2 cars, and that realism makes for a seamless viewing experience that truly feels like we’re witnessing actual F1 races. Kosinski specializes in capturing kinetic, high-speed vehicular action and makes the most out of his task here, putting viewers in and around seemingly every angle of the race cars as they tour F1 tracks around the world.
The plot is achingly obvious, with Pitt playing the washed-up veteran, Sonny, called in for one last shot at glory, and Idris as the hot young upstart named Joshua trying to make his mark in the racing world. They both work on a team controlled by Javier Bardem’s character, making them wary teammates as Sonny’s maverick methods confound and anger Joshua. Of course, they eventually bond and their team performance improves as they travel the world circuit, leading to a pivotal final race that offers the only surprising outcome in the film.
The incredible racing footage is brilliantly transferred to home screens via the new 4K UHD disc. Action is crisply defined in all races, and the lossless Dolby Atmos TrueHD sound is insanely immersive, offering thundering spatial surround. Colors don’t pop quite as much as I expected, with a fairly subdued color palette and climate conditions that trend toward a humid midday look rather than idealized golden hour or brightly illuminated nighttime settings. There’s a case to be made that this adds to the realism, but the dull, hazy daytime hues ensure the film will never be confused with Speed Racer.
The disc is packed with special features including a peek inside the cast table read, a look at the training regimen for the stars, an overview of the sets and locations around the world, a chat with producer and real F1 racing star Lewis Hamilton, and most importantly, an in-depth look at how the production was filmed. Note that only the disc is packed, because the included digital copy is an entirely different beast.
If you’re not an Apple user (yes, we do exist), you’re in for a miserable time if you attempt to redeem the digital copy. Although Apple is a Movies Anywhere retailer, and Warner Bros handles the physical package production and distribution of Apple’s films, F1 is NOT Movies Anywhere compatible or redeemable, so you can’t just redeem in seconds and watch via your favorite Movies Anywhere retailer.
Instead, users are forced to jump through multiple hoops to access their content behind Apple’s closed ecosystem, including having to set up an Apple ID if you don’t have one, downloading a proprietary Apple TV app on PC instead of just going to a redemption website, and/or trying to redeem through the Apple TV app on your TV/streaming device (which wasn’t an option in my Chromecast app). Worse, the only digital bonus feature is a lengthy interview with executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, but it seems to be segregated behind another paywall exclusively for Apple TV subscribers. If Apple really wants to act like a movie studio, they need to seriously step up their game in the digital home market.
