Going tonight to see F1 early screening on IMAX. Looks like a great summer flick. Directed by the same director of Top Gun: Maverick. It was filmed entirely on IMAX cameras, so should show well in the IMAX theater.
No IMAX in my city of 100k, but plan on sitting in DBox seats to get the full driving effect! I saw one of the Fast and the Furious movies in a DBox seat. The driving scenes were awesome to experience, the fight scense not soi much! 
Sooo looking forward to seeing this movie in the theater!
MtM
Well, maybe not entirely IMAX cameras since it apparently also was shot using the guts of an iPhone camera for the onboard shots.
Saw it today, spoilered below:
First major caveat: if you’re looking for realistic racing, strategy, or car design, this is not the movie for that. It has none of those things.
The plot is a bit beyond belief, but it exists: Sonny Hayes crashed out of F1 trying to pass Ayrton Senna in the 90s, got depressed, and fucked up everything, until he got back into racing - literally anything he could - a decade later. He’s a motor racing hobo savant. The opening is him carrying his team to victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona and skipping out on the award ceremony, only to be found by his old F1 buddy. After being convinced to help a struggling F1 team by said buddy, he bins it on his first lap, so naturally they decide he’s the guy to drive the car at the next race. In that race, he bins BOTH cars, so obviously they keep him on. That’s pretty much how things go from there until the end of the movie, adding in calling strategy for both cars during the races and helping the technical director singlehandedly solve F1 forever with “make it follow other cars better”. Add in a bad guy moneyman and some fireworks, boom, you got a movie.
Visually, it was absolutely stunning. There were a few shots where someone knowing what they were looking at could see the protagonist team was driving an F2 car against F1s, but I don’t know if non-F1 fans would notice. But the driving is exciting, if overly pass-happy, and you can feel the speed.
Same with the sound: the IMAX felt well dialed-in. Plenty loud and experience-building, but not overly so like some movies. To be honest, I think it’ll lose something at home without surround sound.
The cameos were fun as hell, as well. Zak Brown, Toto Wolff, and Fred Vasseur all make small speaking appearances, and Lewis Hamilton and Roscoe have minor bits as well. Most, if not all, of the other drivers and principals make appearances as well, but those parts specifically look like standard F1 footage from grid walks and media appearances.
The plot and writing isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but the experience itself really was fantastic. If you want to watch it, I think the theater is the way to go. I don’t think it holds up at home without your own home theater system. I think I might watch it again with my niece, she’s become interested in motor racing recently, but don’t know if I’ll wait with bated breath for the at-home release.
It’s a great summer action sports flick. Definitely see it in the theater. This has the potential to drive significant increase in viewership of F1 in the US, where it is middling at best.
It was good. Worth seeing.
Ha! That description fits Days of Thunder exactly. Maybe it is just impossible for Hollywood to make a decent race film*.
*The 1971 film Le Mans was a McQueen Solar production. I’m not sure ho Grand Prix fits. Too much love story?
I saw Rush again on TV just a few days ago. Directed by Ron Howard and centred on the rivalry between drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda culminating in the 1976 Grand Prix championships, and enjoyed it thoroughly despite being otherwise a non-car racing / car movie fan. It had lots of cameos and connections to people who were there in real life, not that this immediately makes for better movie-making. I can highly recommend it as entertainment, but how would it sit in the F1 film stakes?
I thought it was pretty great, personally. It’s not perfect, but the personalities of the two drivers contrasted well.