F1: The Movie - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Sometimes it’s perfectly okay for a big-budget summer movie to simply live up to expectations and do no more. The thing that’s often missed when studios approach a summer blockbuster movie is that they forget the simplicity of the intent: getting people into theaters to relax, avoid the heat, eat crappy food, and, if done right, leave entertained. Complicated themes and human messages? Sure, if you can pull it off without getting bogged down, go for it. But ultimately, the goal is to entertain the audience and hopefully get them to come back again. Effectively, that’s exactly what Tron: Legacy and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski delivered with F1: The Movie. 

Our little high-speed racing drama features Brad Pitt as grizzled driver Sonny Hayes. A star in his youth, his later years he travels from track to track, jumping into any vehicle he can just for another race, regardless of pay or accolade. When his old pal Ruben (Javier Bardem) woos him back into F1 as a pinch-hitter team driver alongside the up-and-coming Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris), Sonny is given a chance to put some old demons to rest. But in a sport where speed matters and egos crash, it’s going to be a bumpy run to the finish where every race counts. 

I kind of teased it in the introduction, but it’s true, if you parse out the plot beats of F1: The Movie, they mirror a number of key pieces of Kosinski’s own Top Gun: Maverick. Aged professional returning to their roots to train up the next generation - check. The seemingly impossible high-stakes mission - check. Gradual improvement and growing camaraderie before a near-disaster almost ends everything - check. A finale “mission” that would have been impossible under any other circumstances outside of a summer movie goes just about how you expect it to - check. Trade jets for high-powered Formula One cars, and you have two films that mirror each other in any number of ways. And that’s perfectly okay. 

While the film plays fast and loose with the rules, regulations, and routines of the F1 circuit, it accomplishes the goal of putting the audience in the driver's seat. Again, trading jets for cars, Kosinski delivers the excitement of being inside the vehicle with our characters at absurdly intense speeds. Who cares if the story is thin and the characters just as anorexic; it’s about letting the audience feel the uncompromised adrenaline rush of an F1 race. I only casually follow F1 (I like it a lot more than Nascar, but with so many races happening when I'm sound asleep, I often fail to keep up), so I know there is a lot of embellishment, but this film captures that thrill of defeat, disaster, and victory. 

Sure, F1 might not be original, it might not be the best written piece of cinema out there, but I’d be damned if it didn’t succeed in its goal. It’s a genuine summer blockbuster event that gets you into the theater and delivers high-value entertainment. It also does what a good summer blockbuster should do - bring you back for more! This film wasn’t an immediate hit. Its opening was modest, given the large budget. However, it held on and built an audience week after week. I caught F1 on the first Monday after opening weekend, and by that Friday, I had seen it at IMAX two more times. The film was a great time in theaters, and it’s still damned entertaining at home. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Hitting home video with the pedal to the floor, F1: The Movie grabs the checkered flag with a single-disc 4K UHD + Digital release from Warner Bros and SDS. The film is pressed on a BD100 disc, comes packed in a standard case with an identical slipcover, and the digital code is Movies Anywhere compatible. 

I’ll start by saying this: if I could knock points off anywhere for anything, it’s that this 4K release opts for the 2.39:1 aspect ratio instead of offering the full IMAX experience, either in consistent or shifting aspect ratio. Now, I say “could” because I mean that. Even though I am reservedly bummed that we’re not getting a disc at home that replicates that incredible IMAX experience, I cannot complain about this 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. As I mentioned in the review, the three times I saw this film in theaters were at IMAX, I didn’t see it on a standard screen, so I didn’t know how effective that would be. But I’d be damned if I wasn’t still sucked right into the action and visuals of the races! Details are sharp and clear, letting us enjoy Pitt’s ever-present two-day beard stubble, clothing textures, and so forth. It’s a sharp, clear image and picks up a nice Dolby Vision grade to pop the colors of those cars with lovely, deep black levels and shadows for some marvelous three-dimensional depth. Front to back, can’t find a thing to complain about. 

Matching the video presentation is an equally effective reference-quality Dolby Atmos audio mix. Just as Kosinski so effectively let audiences feel the roar of the jets in Top Gun, he lets us feel the rumble of the car engines in F1. When the races are on, this is a wall-to-wall track with a constant 360 spread across the hemisphere, with plenty of height channel activity to fully pull us into the action. Throughout, dialogue is clean and clear without issue. And if the races aren’t blasting the channels and hitting the LFE, the excellent Hans Zimmer score is picking up the slack in that department. 

Where this release slips a little in the rankings is on the bonus features. What we get is decent, a bit on the EPK side, and there are a number of featurettes, but individually they’re not very expansive. We get glimpses into the production, but not a whole lot of detail. They’re good, they’re somewhat interesting, but for such a unique experience, the film nerd in me would have liked a longer, more dedicated peek behind he curtain. 

• Inside the F1 The Movie Table Read (HD 5:10) 
• The Anatomy of a Crash (HD 6:28) 
• Getting Up to Speed (HD 5:02) 
• APXGP Innovations (HD 5:26) 
• Making It to Silverstone (HD 5:08) 
• Lewis Hamilton: Producer (HD 5:18) 
• APXGP Sets and Locations Around the World (HD 9:26)
• APXGP and F1: How It Was Filmed (HD 5:45)
• Sound of Speed (HD 5:01)

By no means was F1: The Movie a “perfect” film, but damn was it fun! The plot might have been basic and expected, but the film was made so well and the experience so exciting that going to the theater (multiple times) was more than worth it. But there are times when a movie that plays best on a big screen fails to translate to home video. Thankfully, this is not one of those times. Warner Bros and SDS delivered a disc with a near-flawless A/V presentation. Sure, I’d still love to see the full IMAX experience at home, but even at 2.39:1, the movie packs plenty of visual excitement in Dolby Vision, complete with a rocking Atmos track. Extras are a tad skimpy, but they’re at least somewhat informative. Highly Recommended home entertainment.