SUMMARY

Matt and Tommy, hosts of the P1 Podcast, deliver a brutally honest review of the F1 movie starring Brad Pitt, praising its stunning race visuals while slamming the clichéd plot and unrealistic portrayal of the sport.

STATEMENTS

• The F1 movie features impressive visuals and audio, especially in IMAX, making it worth watching for fans eager to see cinematic Formula 1 action.
• Race scenes are the highlight, blending real F1 footage with the fictional Apex GP car effectively, evoking strong love for the sport.
• The movie avoids some racing clichés like simplistic gear-shifting for speed, instead focusing on realistic elements like upgrades and tire management, likely influenced by Lewis Hamilton.
• The plot is heavily Americanized, with exaggerations like Brad Pitt's character starting far back on the grid for an unfair advantage, bordering on misinformation.
• Brad Pitt plays a 60-year-old driver returning after decades away, racing competitively against young talents, which undermines the elite athleticism of real F1 drivers.
• The storyline feels generically predictable, like something generated by AI, wasting opportunities for compelling real F1-inspired narratives.
• Female characters, including the technical director, are portrayed through degrading tropes like unnecessary one-night stands, clashing with modern F1 efforts like F1 Academy.
• The film includes cheating elements, such as manipulating races, which harms F1's image by suggesting teams routinely engage in unethical tactics without severe consequences.
• There are no clear villains; a late addition of a sabotaging investor feels forced and weak, contributing to the plot's predictability.
• Easter eggs and nods to F1 history provide fun moments for dedicated fans, enhancing rewatch value.
• Hans Zimmer's score complements the visuals effectively, adding to the immersive experience.
• The chemistry between Brad Pitt and his young teammate Damson Idris offers some engaging banter amid the weak narrative.
• Without the racing sequences, the movie collapses into a collection of Hollywood clichés, lacking emotional depth or empathy for its characters.
• The portrayal of women and outdated stereotypes set F1 representation back, ignoring the sport's progress toward inclusivity.
• Overall ratings are low: 3/10 from Tommy for the poor plot offsetting great action, and 4/10 from Matt for F1 fans' enjoyment of the visuals.

IDEAS

• Blending real F1 races with fictional elements creates a seamless, exhilarating spectacle that reignites passion for the sport on the big screen.
• A 60-year-old comeback driver trivializes F1's grueling physical and mental demands, equating elite racing to casual skill rather than lifelong sacrifice.
• Unnecessary romantic subplots degrade professional women in motorsport, reducing talented roles to outdated Hollywood stereotypes.
• Cheating mechanics in the plot mock F1's integrity, portraying teams as willing to "yeet" rivals without meaningful repercussions.
• The film's predictability stems from lazy clichés, like instant character backstories, making it feel like an AI-generated script.
• Lewis Hamilton's involvement ensures technical accuracy in car development, avoiding absurd racing tropes seen in older motorsport films.
• Easter eggs hidden for fans add layers of insider humor, rewarding deep knowledge without spoiling broader appeal.
• Portraying F1 as a "clown show" through exaggeration could alienate newcomers, countering the sport's Drive to Survive-driven growth.
• Swapping the lead to the young driver could have crafted a more authentic underdog story, leveraging F1's real history of rookies challenging veterans.
• The movie's visuals capture the chaotic energy of an F1 weekend so well that it sparks ideas for cinema screenings of actual races.
• Outdated elements like smoking and drinking evoke 1980s F1 nostalgia, clashing with the sport's modern, progressive image.
• Removing all plot for pure racing footage would transform the film into a high-octane highlight reel, better suiting F1's adrenaline core.

INSIGHTS

• Cinematic F1 excels when prioritizing sensory immersion over narrative depth, revealing how visuals alone can sustain fan loyalty in a plot-weak film.
• Unrealistic portrayals erode the sport's credibility, highlighting the tension between Hollywood entertainment and preserving athletic reverence.
• Gender tropes in the movie underscore broader industry failures, where progress in inclusivity like F1 Academy is undermined by regressive storytelling.
• Technical authenticity, boosted by insider input like Hamilton's, bridges fiction and reality, proving collaboration elevates genre films beyond clichés.
• Predictable plots in sports movies often stem from safe choices, but they risk alienating audiences by ignoring the sport's rich, unpredictable history.
• Cheating depictions reflect a flawed narrative strategy, exposing how glorifying shortcuts devalues the ethical rigor that defines competitive excellence.
• Fan-specific Easter eggs demonstrate smart layering, fostering community without compromising accessibility for casual viewers.
• Low ratings despite strong production values illustrate a core divide: action thrills versus emotional investment, where the latter often decides a film's legacy.

QUOTES

• "I was sat there going, 'God, I love F1.' And it was worth watching just purely for the effort that they put in to that side of things."
• "Brad Pit rocking up as a Silverstone driver, six-year-old man on his Zimmer frame, plonking himself into the car... completely and utterly defecates on what Formula 1 is."
• "It's genuinely like chat GPT wrote it... the most generic predictable plot you could ever wish to see."
• "What year are we in? Like how has someone signed this off as yes, this is what we want? We know we want to show the female part, but we're going to put her in Brad Pitt's bed."
• "The drivers... go, 'Well, actually, I've spent my whole damn life to be a Formula 1 driver, and Hollywood has come in and made it look like, what are these stupid F1 drivers doing?'"
• "If you literally removed them [plot bits], it would be a much more watchable movie in a weird way."
• "The visuals are incredible, but... the actual plot of it is a zero."

HABITS

• Avoid discussing the movie immediately after viewing to preserve fresh reactions for shared platforms like podcasts.
• Watch films in IMAX for enhanced sensory experiences, especially visually intensive ones like racing movies.
• Seek out insider influences, such as consulting experts like Lewis Hamilton, to ensure technical accuracy in specialized content.
• Incorporate subtle Easter eggs in creative work to engage niche audiences without alienating broader ones.
• Balance critique with fairness by highlighting positives, like visuals, even in overwhelmingly negative reviews.
• Prepare detailed notes during viewing to capture specific pros and cons for structured discussions.

FACTS

• Brad Pitt's character is implied to be in his early 50s or older, having raced against legends like Senna and Schumacher, making him one of the oldest fictional F1 drivers.
• The movie uses a modified Formula 2 car as the Apex GP stand-in, integrated with real 2024 F1 race footage for authenticity.
• Lewis Hamilton served as a producer, influencing realistic elements like seasonal car upgrades and avoiding outdated racing clichés.
• Hans Zimmer composed the score, enhancing the film's immersive quality with his signature epic style.
• The plot includes a red-flag incident at Abu Dhabi with three laps remaining, mirroring real F1 controversies.
• F1 Academy is an real initiative promoting women in motorsport, contrasting the movie's stereotypical female portrayals.

REFERENCES

• Real F1 races and 2024 footage for blending with fictional scenes.
• Lewis Hamilton's production input on technical accuracy.
• Hans Zimmer's soundtrack composition.
• Films like "Rush" for inspiring authentic F1 storytelling.
• "Driven" as an example of comically ridiculous motorsport cinema.
• Drive to Survive series for context on entertaining F1 narratives.
• F1 Academy initiative for women in motorsport.
• Easter eggs nodding to F1 history, like specific driver references.
• Abu Dhabi Grand Prix incidents for plot inspiration.

HOW TO APPLY

• Prioritize sensory elements in content creation: Focus on high-quality visuals and audio, like the movie's race scenes, to captivate audiences even if the narrative is weak—start by scouting IMAX or high-res filming tech for immersive projects.
• Incorporate expert consultation early: Emulate Hamilton's role by bringing in domain specialists during scripting to avoid clichés; outline key technical aspects and review drafts with pros for authenticity.
• Balance critique with positives in reviews: When analyzing media, list strengths first, such as Easter eggs, before negatives, to maintain fairness—jot notes during viewing to structure balanced discussions.
• Challenge outdated tropes in storytelling: Scrutinize character arcs for stereotypes, like the film's romance subplot, and rewrite them to empower roles; test scripts against modern inclusivity standards like F1 Academy.
• Enhance fan engagement with hidden details: Add subtle nods or Easter eggs tailored to your audience, ensuring they reward deep knowledge without spoiling—brainstorm 3-5 insider references per project.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Embrace the F1 movie's thrilling visuals for fan joy, but lament its clichéd plot that undermines the sport's elite essence.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Watch the film in IMAX solely for the race sequences to maximize visual and auditory thrills without plot distractions.
• Advocate for diverse, empowering female roles in future F1 media to align with initiatives like F1 Academy and counter stereotypes.
• Push F1 organizers to host cinema screenings of real races, inspired by the movie's big-screen impact, for communal viewing events.
• Demand sequels with realistic narratives drawn from F1 history, like rookie underdog stories, to honor the sport's depth.
• Use the film's technical accuracies as a benchmark for motorsport content, collaborating with insiders to elevate authenticity.
• Boycott or critique productions that glorify cheating in sports films, urging ethical portrayals to protect F1's integrity.
• Seek out Hans Zimmer-scored films for epic backdrops, applying similar immersive audio to personal creative endeavors.
• Rewrite weak plots in fan fiction by centering young talents over aging comebacks, fostering fresh F1-inspired tales.

MEMO

Matt and Tommy, the dynamic duo behind the P1 Podcast, finally unpack their unfiltered takes on the Apple Original Films' F1, starring Brad Pitt as a grizzled comeback driver for the fictional Apex GP team. Having viewed it separately in cinemas—Matt in a standard screening, Tommy on holiday—they reunite to debate its merits without major spoilers, though mild plot teases are inevitable. As die-hard fans, they start with cautious optimism: yes, it's worth a watch for anyone craving Formula 1 on the grandest scale. The IMAX experience, they argue, transforms the sport into a visceral spectacle, with roaring engines and high-speed chases that evoke pure adrenaline. "God, I love F1," Matt confesses, crediting the seamless integration of real 2024 race footage with the movie's modified Formula 2 car. These sequences dominate the runtime, mercifully avoiding the pitfalls of past motorsport flops like Driven, where physics bends to comedy. Instead, thanks to producer Lewis Hamilton's touch, the film nods to aero upgrades, tire strategies, and seasonal evolutions—elements that feel authentically grounded.

Yet, the praise halts abruptly at the narrative core, which both hosts eviscerate as a "ChatGPT-generated" mess of Hollywood clichés. Brad Pitt's Sonny Hayes, a 60-something veteran returning after decades away to mentor hotshot Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), embodies their chief grievance: it defecates on F1's elite athleticism. How, they wonder, could the sport greenlight a plot where a gambling, neck-training retiree outpaces young phenoms on his first laps, smashing records while the grid warms tires? This setup, they say, feeds the misconception that F1 is "driving in circles" anyone could ace, devaluing drivers' lifelong sacrifices. Comparisons to football abound—a semi-pro suddenly winning the World Cup?—highlighting the absurdity. Worse, the film shoehorns in a degrading romance for the sharp technical director (Kerry Condon), reducing her to a one-night stand that risks her career, a trope that clashes with F1's progressive push via F1 Academy. Female portrayals overall feel regressive, evoking 1980s grid girls and smoky paddock nostalgia, setting representation back decades.

The duo delves into how this resonates—or repels—audiences. For newcomers, the cheating antics (Sonny manipulating incidents to gain edges) paint F1 as a trollish iRacing farce, where teams "yeet" rivals with impunity, starting next races from the back as mere slaps on the wrist. No wonder drivers on the red carpet stayed mum, Tommy notes; they've toed the line, but privately, it must sting to see their grind mocked by a silver-screen hack. Villainy is absent until a contrived investor sabotage emerges late, as predictable as the script's orphaned backstories—dads dying in tandem, unexplored. Without the races, they deem it "one of the worst movies ever," a cringefest lacking empathy or underdog heart. Still, glimmers shine: Pitt and Idris's banter sparks chemistry, Hans Zimmer's score amplifies the roar, and Easter eggs delight insiders with winks to Senna, Schumacher, and Abu Dhabi's red-flag drama.

Ultimately, their ratings reflect the schism—Tommy's 3/10 damns the zero-star plot against nine-star action, while Matt's 4/10 credits F1 fandom's bias toward the visuals. They yearn for what could have been: centering Pearce's rise, ditching the Zimmer-frame heroics for real F1 lore like Hamilton's rookie battles. The disappointment cuts deep; they entered ready to defend Hollywood's liberties, à la Drive to Survive, but the premise veered too far into ridicule. As the Austrian Grand Prix looms, they pivot to racing talk, urging F1 to reclaim its narrative—perhaps by cinema-streaming actual grands prix. For fans, F1 is a flawed thrill ride: strap in for the speed, but brace for the narrative wreckage.