Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup – taking you through the week’s biggest new releases and why you should be excited for them. This week we have fast cars and killer robots…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
F1: The Movie
Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was once seen as a racing prodigy, competing with the likes of Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell, before a horrific crash ended his career. Instead he spends the next 30 years on the road, living out of a van and taking on one-off races that satisfy his driving itch without tying him down to a team. That all ends when his old racing buddy Ruben (Javier Bardem) makes him an offer to return to the world of Formula One to rescue his struggling team and mentor his promising young rookie Joshua (Damson Idris). But after a life on his own, can Sonny learn to be a team player again, and does he still have it in him to come out in pole position in the world’s most prestigious racing circuit?
I went to a preview screening of F1 on Monday. I’ve never been hugely into the sport – my parents are big fans, but as a kid I would tend to find something else to do while it was on and just look up when it sounded like it was getting exciting. It definitely has its moments, but they’re normally brief thrills interspersed among hours of watching cars driving in circles. The genius of this film is that it manufactures a load of exciting scenarios and cuts out the rest of the race, leaving you with a brilliant movie that really puts you in the driver’s seat. I would heartily recommend watching it in IMAX – you can feel the engines roaring through your seat – but if ever a film would be a perfect one to watch in 4DX, this would be it. Despite being sat next to some of the most irritating fellow cinemagoers I’ve ever been stuck with (let’s call them Tutty and Elbows), I loved every second of it and would gladly watch it again.
Sonny is a perfect fit for Pitt – he’s an arrogant, cocky American who relies on charm and instincts to get him through life. But he also expresses plenty of vulnerability and maturity when the script calls for it. He apparently learned to drive a Formula One car for the film and most of Sonny’s driving scenes are Pitt, not a stuntman (which is an insane level of commitment given that he has a helmet covering his face in those scenes, so he really could have been anyone) – eat your heart out, Tom Cruise. Javier Bardem is instantly likeable as a well-meaning guy who’s in over his head after making a terrible investment. And Idris holds his own well in the second lead role opposite those seasoned mega-stars – life imitating art in a film about talent vs experience. Also in the cast are Kerry Condon, the engineer tasked with designing a car that can turn the team’s fortunes around, and Tobias Menzies as a sleazy board member who’s desperate to take advantage of the team’s failure.
There are some good names behind the camera too. The director is Joseph Kosinski, who did such an incredible job of reviving Top Gun with Top Gun: Maverick. There are some definite stylistic links here – Kosinsky is clearly a fan of putting Hollywood A-listers in shiny expensive vehicles and watching them go. Hans Zimmer has composed a great soundtrack without a single BBWWOOAARR to be found, clearly relishing the chance to do a big budget blockbuster that isn’t a superhero or sci-fi film. And the producers include blockbuster master Jerry Bruckheimer and actual-F1-racing-driver-guy Lewis Hamilton, so you know it’s going to be both epic and authentic.
Off the track, the story is not the most original but it’s no less compelling for it. There are a few minor characters who feel slightly short-changed – a side plot involving Callie Cooke’s accident-prone pit stop mechanic feels like it was thrown in as an afterthought – and once you know what the stakes are there’s really only one way the movie could end. But really this is all about the racing. There is loads here for fans of Formula One, from behind-the-scenes insights into how the cars are tested and drivers trained, to big name cameos (which are brief enough to not feel over-egged but clear enough to excite the likes of Elbows and Tutty). But even if you don’t spend your Sundays watching cars drive round in circles, this is a hugely enjoyable film that I can thoroughly recommend.
- F1: The Movie on IMDB
- F1: The Movie on Rotten Tomatoes
M3GAN 2.0
The first M3GAN film was a daft but fun horror comedy in which a robotic assistant, designed to befriend and protect a young girl, goes rogue and takes extreme measures to keep her ward safe. It was a huge hit for horror studio Blumhouse, so it’s no huge surprise that they upgraded it to a franchise. In the sequel, M3GAN’s inventor Gemma (Allison Williams) is forced to build the AI a new body to defend her and her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) when a military prototype based on her designs for M3GAN decides to hunt them down.
Where the original had some clear horror moments (the bit with the ears still gives me the willies), it looks like that element has been toned down here and the camp silliness dialled way up. Which makes sense – that was what set the original apart from other horrors and was a big reason for its success – but still feels like a bit of a shame as I thought the horror complimented the campiness quite well. What we have instead looks almost more like a superhero movie, with M3GAN taking the role of a powered-up protector defending the weak and fleshy from new nemesis Amelia.
This still looks like a ridiculous amount of fun from the trailer. M3GAN seems to be a lot sassier this time around. At one point she calls the human characters “meatsacks”, which immediately made me think of Bender from Futurama, and now I am well and truly sold on the idea that M3GAN is just Bender’s programming in the body of a teenage girl robot. If this film has anything as bonkers as the dance scene from the first film then I expect this will do very well too.
- M3GAN 2.0 on IMDB
- M3GAN 2.0 on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Well worth getting in the car and racing to the cinema – our film of the week is F1: The Movie.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- 28 Years Later – An excellent sequel that feels of a piece with Days and Weeks but at the same time feels much more modern and grand in scale. The mythology is developed from the earlier entries in a way that feels logical and believable. Rocco Haynes, the kid playing the lead role, is a great find – comfortably holding his own against the likes of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes. The film is every bit as scary and tense as you’d want it to be but also surprisingly sad in one scene in particular. And, if you thought that a tearjerker moment in a 28 Days Later sequel would be the biggest surprise of the movie, wait til you get to the utterly left-field ending which will leave you thinking “Wait, is that… Surely they didn’t… wow…”
- Elio
- How To Train Your Dragon
Trailer of the Week
I’m pretty sure I’ve featured the first trailer for this as Trailer of the Week before, but it’s an intriguing enough premise that I’m doing it again. Weapons is a new horror directed by Zach Cregger (the man behind Barbarian) and starring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, in which one night a load of children get up at the exact same time, walk out of their houses and are never seen again. With the kids all belonging to the same class at school, the finger is immediately pointed at their teacher (Garner), but she’s just as scared and confused as the parents. Where it goes from there is still a mystery, but there are some really frightful scenes in the trailer – this is promising to be a highlight of the year for horror fans when it hits cinemas on August 8th.
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