I used to enjoy watching Formula 1 when I was growing up, the era of the great rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost (with entertaining interjections from Nigel Mansell). On 13 November 1994 I woke up early to watch the Australian Grand Prix from Adelaide and watched Michael Schumacher deliberately take out his rival Damon Hill to prevent the latter from winning the title and it was the angriest I’ve ever been as a sports viewer, and I’ve not watched a race since. (Forgive and forget, I know.)
F1: The Movie is an “officially licenced” product of the sport’s governing body which meant the film – about an ageing former driver coming out of retirement (Brad Pitt), and who can possibly guess how that turns out – had an extraordinary level of access to film during actual races.
Hans Zimmer is no stranger to adrenaline-soaked motoring movies, having previously scored Rush, Days of Thunder and Driving Miss Daisy, and there’s something about his old signature sound from the 90s that seems ideally suited to this subject. It’s pleasing therefore that it’s an updated version of that sound that drives the power anthem main theme which opens the album, all drums and keyboards and apparently an orchestra buried somewhere in the mix too, though it could be samples (increasingly hard to tell these days; the fact there’s no conductor credited suggests it’s probably the latter). I think it’s great – propulsive and invigorating – maybe the tune doesn’t quite stick like Zimmer’s best, but as the kids might say, it’s more about the feels.
The score itself has two distinct sounds – first there’s that sound of the main theme, electronics-heavy, used for the action / racing sequences. Inevitably, some of these are rather downbeat (“Run for the Podium”), others upbeat (“Drive Fast”). It’s rock music at heart – as an awful lot of the composer’s music is – and here expressed simply, not disguised as something else, it has a purity that I find very entertaining. Others have noted a similarity with Reznor/Ross’s Challengers – while I understand it from a purely musical perspective, I think Zimmer’s dramatic instincts are on another planet to theirs and this is infinitely superior film music.
Second there’s the slightly weightier dramatic music elsewhere in the score where Zimmer has to bring emotion more to the fore. It’s first heard in the terrific “Road to Recovery”, the score’s secondary theme revealed for the first time in any significant way. These sections are more directly reminiscent of Rush (a fantastic score, by the way) in the way they’re structured, still very “masculine” if I’m allowed to say that, and also still with a dramatic rhythm to them, but not with all the adrenaline of the racing music. “No One Drives Forever” is terrific – full of emotion with the signature slow-building layers.
For the last few cues, Zimmer pulls out one action cue after another, gradually building up to the grand finale while going through various trials and tribulations along the way as all the good sports movie scores do. F1 doesn’t quite have the spectacular highlights that Rush did but it’s a consistently entertaining piece of work, very easy to listen to and very easy to enjoy.
The score is only (currently) available as part of what is curiously described as “cinematic edition” of the soundtrack album (one would think “cinematic” a rather unnecessary adjective when it comes to describing music written for a film) which also includes the song album, also available separately on the non-cinematic edition. It’s not a major work by Zimmer standards, but certainly comes recommended.
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