The fast and the infectious
Brad Pitt embraces the formula and England embraces the apocalypse in this week’s double review of F1 the Movie and 28 Years Later.
F1 the Movie – Joseph Kosinski
F1 (registered trademark symbol) the Movie is a sports drama from Joseph Kosinski and Ehren Kruger that puts Brad Pitt in a Formula One car and assumes that half of the Top Gun: Maverick creative team can recreate the magic of their 2022 smash hit. This film really highlights the fact that Brad Pitt is not Tom Cruise and Ehren Kruger without his Maverick writing partners (Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie) is just the dude who wrote the Transformers sequels. While F1 doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of its more impressive older brother, its vintage sincerity and strong supporting performances ensure that it’s still an enjoyable time at the movies.
Spurred by the cowboy archetype and his own personal soundtrack of 70s rock, Brad plays Sonny Hayes, a raggedy old Formula One driver who burnt out in the 90s and has been doing odd jobs to keep the lights on in his van. His old racing pal Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) owns the Wrexham A.F.C of Formula One teams and recruits Sonny to mentor his cocky young rising star Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). As per the Mentor-Protegé handbook, Sonny and Joshua initially butt heads before forming a mutually beneficial bond. Supporting this bond is the wider APXGP team, including technical director Kate (Kerry Condon), team principal Kaspar (Kim Bodnia) and Josh’s mum Bernadette (Sarah Niles). Threatening it is member of the board Peter Banning (Tobias Menzies sporting a shit-eating grin) who has a vested interest in Ruben failing and selling the team.
If that sounds like a bit of a scant premise to sustain a 2 hour and 35 minute film, that’s because it is. The copyright symbol within the film’s title reminds us that this is just an expensive ad for the sport partly funded by the litany of brand logos and Formula One faces (I only recognised Lewis Hamilton’s) throughout the film. It’s weird that a military propaganda sequel 30 years in the making feels fresher and more original than this technically original film but that just goes to show the power of craft and Tom Cruise.
What I will say in F1’s favour is that the racing sequences are genuinely immersive and while they don’t come close to matching Maverick’s white-knuckle aerial thrills, they do carry the film and they’re what you yearn to get back to whenever the camera is away from the track too long. Maverick cinematographer Claudio Miranda returns to capture the action, some of which took place during the 2023 British Grand Prix and other real (non F1) races across the world (though Pitt drove a modded Formula Two car). The antics are all pretty digestible for laymen and I enjoyed the behind the scenes team dynamic.
Contributing greatly to this dynamic is Kerry Condon, magnetic as always and out acting Brad Pitt in every scene. It’s a shame that the film insists on shoving her into a steamless romantic subplot when she’s supposedly the first female technical director in the industry; then again, that was one of Maverick’s few flaws so Kosinski and co evidently didn’t learn their lesson.
Damson Idris brings much-needed spirit to counteract Brad’s nothingness and I think he does a great job walking the line of arrogance and vulnerability. It’s always nice to see a great Dane in mainstream American movies and Kim Bodnia brings Dogme 95 reality to his role as team principal who has been in the industry perhaps too long. And Javier Bardem is unsurprisingly excellent as Ruben, one of the more well-rounded characters in the film thanks to his performance rather than the script.
For me, F1’s greatest strength might be the thing that turns others off, and that is a vintage brand of sincerity that makes it feel like a film from the 90s. Yes, some of the dialogue is obvious and corny. And yes, the plot is incredibly formulaic and predictable. But I find comfort in films that wear their heart on their sleeves and aren’t afraid to let victory by way of teamwork be their raison d'être. F1 is about people - not just the person in the driver’s seat - making a car go faster than all the other cars and most of the people in the film do their job immaculately.
Unfortunately, both Brad Pitt and Sonny as he’s written are the film’s deadweight. It turns out you can’t just throw a 60-something Hollywood leading man into an action role and expect Tom Cruise to come out unless you hire Tom Cruise. There is very little to characterise Sonny beyond ‘hot older dude who used to drive in Formula One’ and we never get under his skin or form any real emotional connection with him. Pitt also plays him with a John Wayne-like swagger that the lore of the character doesn’t back up, so his arc feels hollow, his relationships feel undercooked and his redemption feels meaningless.
Somewhere in the first two thirds of F1 is a tighter, better film. But once it completed its final lap and a cringey Ed Sheeran song ushered in the credits, a half star had been knocked off the podium. I suppose that just goes to show my tolerance; I can handle OneRepublic and beach football but I can’t do Sheeran and beach racing.
Verdict
☆☆☆½
F1 the Movie is in cinemas June 26.
28 Years Later – Danny Boyle
It’s been 23 years since Danny Boyle and Alex Garland unleashed the Rage Virus from a lab in the UK and infected the onscreen lives of Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson. In doing so, the pair unintentionally (I say that because they don’t consider it a zombie film) redefined the zombie horror genre and inspired the sequel 28 Weeks Later, no doubt also influencing the success of UK horror comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Cockneys vs Zombies (it’s fun and worth a watch).
I’m outing myself a bit here in saying that I like but don’t love the original film and have never seen the sequel (though I’ve heard good things); were it not for my loyalty to Alex Garland and intrigue sparked by its compelling trailer, I might not have rushed out to see this film. It therefore gives me great joy to report that 28 Years Later made me gasp, wince, cheer and most unexpectedly, cry.
The film is touted as a post-apocalyptic coming-of-age horror film and I’ve never seen a more apt (and elongated) genre description. In true childhood smashing form, 28 Years Later opens on the Teletubbies and the faces of worried, crying children. To be fair, Teletubbies often left me feeling unsettled, so it’s hard to know if it’s that or the muffled screams from downstairs causing the kids’ worry.
Soon, we get an answer, and a young boy named Jimmy runs from the carnage of this house in the Scottish Highlands to a nearby church. But the vicar is no help either; he says the outbreak is actually Judgement Day and gives Jimmy his crucifix before bidding him adieu. Jimmy and religion will pop up again throughout this film but for now, let’s do a time jump.
It’s 28 years later and a 12-year-old boy named Spike (Alfie Williams) is about to embark on a rite of passage with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). They live in a curious community on Lindisfarne (also known as the Holy Island), a small landmass connected to the mainland by a causeway that’s only walkable during low tide. Jamie is taking Spike on a coming-of-age hunt but when he tells his bed-bound and forgetful mother Isla (Jodie Comer), she loses her shit. What are they hunting, pray tell? Infected, of course, and the mainland is crawling with them.
But it’s not just the slow, tumorous variety that eat worms; there are faster infected living in the forest and worse still, a mutant variant of super strong Alphas that Jamie has seen take twelve arrows before being knocked down. Jamie and Spike spend longer than expected on the mainland due to some occupational hazards and Spike notices a pillar of smoke in the distance. Infected don’t have the smarts to start fires and Spike wonders who’s responsible. Jamie is reluctant to answer; little does he know that his negligence will result in a beautiful, terrifying odyssey that explores survival, belief and the knowledge that we all must die.
What Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have achieved with 28 Years Later is a piece of a larger puzzle that vastly enriches the lore of the franchise and also works on its own (if you’re open to some structural chaos). Where the original offers low budget realism that makes it feel like a gnarly episode of The Bill, 28 Years Later is a technicolor tapestry with Memento Mori scrawled across a waving banner. The two films couldn’t be more different and I think that’s appropriate, given the time that’s lapsed and the works that Danny Boyle and (more specifically) Alex Garland have created during that gap.
The most visually spectacular parts of the film remind me of Annihilation and the Hannibal series with the transformation of the human body into the flora of the land. Red night vision provides an infected view of the world while the moon illuminates a terrifying male figure barreling across the flooded causeway towards a man and his son like some sort of Greek epic captured with paint. The infected look incredible in this and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (who shot the original) places the camera (or iPhones) in places we’ve never seen before in the franchise. There’s even a reference to Predator in the Alphas’ preferred mode of execution, a spine rippingly good threat in a world that couldn’t get more dire. The production design is incredible, the use of archival footage and audio is brilliant and the picture the film paints of a society in permanent quarantine while the rest of the world goes on is one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in film or TV this year.
Performances across the board are excellent, with special shout-outs to Alfie Williams as the young and completely empathetic Spike, Jodie Comer as the film’s beating heart Isla and Ralph Fiennes as Charon of the Britons, ferrying souls to the next world and morphine darting predators to stay alive. The score by Young Fathers swells where it needs to and death rattles elsewhere, perfectly complementing the tone as it shifts. And shift it does.
Of the few complaints one might have about 28 Years Later, the biggest is its tonal irregularity. By design (and the fact that it’s setting up a sequel slated for release in 2026) the film starts some stories before jumping to the next quite abruptly and it can feel jarring to go from one feeling to a vastly different one in the span of a minute. It’s very different from the relatively straightforward journey in 28 Days Later but then, mutation is the name of the game here and art must imitate life. The ending is the biggest shift of all and it can seem to come out of nowhere, but I’ve spent some time thinking about it and the more I do, the more I think it fits with the film’s messaging. The other thing to note is that, while the film’s trailer is excellent, it depicts a different experience to the one we get. I think that’s a good thing, but some might feel a bit tricked, so temper your expectations and open your mind.
I won’t say anything more about the film; its nooks and crannies are yours to explore and there’s enough there to warrant a second viewing, which I plan on doing sometime soon. I loved it and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Verdict
☆☆☆☆½
28 Years Later is in cinemas now.
Unfortunately for my Letterboxd (and IQ), I’ve started watching The Valley and suspect that the next couple weeks will be consumed by truly terrible reality television. There is a cinematic highlight in sight, though — Luna Trash Classics are screening Plan 9 From Outer Space, a film I’ve only witnessed through Ed Wood and am greatly looking forward to. Hell, I might try to review it, if life and Kristen Doute don’t get in the way.
