It’s hard to overstate just how much of a pop cultural freight train Top Gun: Maverick was back in the summer of 2022, and harder still to quantify the factors in its success. Arriving after three years of fiscally-prudent delays, the legacy sequel capitalized on brand nostalgia as well as pent up fervor for multiplex spectacle in the wake of the pandemic. Locating Tom Cruise at an ideal moment in his career redemption arc played a sizable role as well, but none of that synergy would have mattered if Joseph Kosinski hadn’t made such a damned good movie. Fast, loud, and playing all the way to the cheap seats, the blockbuster made waves not by refuting the playbook, but affixing it with expert, enthralling craftsmanship, and capitulating to the tried and true at every turn. They say luck is when preparation meets opportunity, and Kosinski’s 80s-leaning Swiss watch of a flick embodied the idiom through work-a-day gumption and a desire to please. Top Gun: Maverick-er has yet to be announced, but that hasn’t stopped its would-be director from spearheading a sequel of his own, with F1 arriving three years later, peddling the exact same dopamine triggers. Is it really lightning in a bottle if you can catch it twice?

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is still out here looking to snag it for the first time. Introduced to us while shaking off a nap to win the aptly titled 24 Hours of Daytona, all the signs of dormant greatness are there from the get-go, as are the wrinkles beneath the eyes. Once a highly-touted upstart with a clear lane to ascension in the early 90s, Hayes’ career has taken a turn toward nomadic day work when former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) appears from the blue with a shot at redemption. Salvation is a two-way street, and Cervantes is in his own kind of trouble; the race team he owns, APXGP, is staring down a corporate takeover if the team can’t start showing signs of immediate, marked improvement. Sonny’s initial reticence is short lived, and he’s soon teamed with Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a braggadocious racer half his age, and with a quarter of his life experience. Miscast as a role model, Hayes makes waves with his surly attitude and unwillingness to follow orders from above, leading through actions rather than words, the preferred vernacular of the rebel.

Or maybe maverick is more like it, as F1 plays like a 155 minute-long xerox copy of the aforementioned Top Gun sequel, down to the performer at its center. Pitt is no stranger to the Cruise playbook of letting real life audience perception intermingle with on screen persona, but where the latter is constantly positioned as a savior figure, the former seems obsessed with charting the end of a storied career. 61 isn’t ancient by any means, but the very idea of silver screen superstardom just might be, and after writing its obituary in both Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood and Babylon, Pitt is back for thirds as an old lion who’s ready to make an argument for himself with acts of vehicular daring. His unorthodox methods, focus of team comradery, friction with the new ways of handling business, and romance with the only single, age-appropriate woman in his orbit (Kerry Condon) are all pure Pete Mitchell, down to the inspiring speeches he whispers off into the night. One wonders if George Clooney is in line for a Kosinski-helmed motocross flick next, because the director’s penchant for sexagenarian matinee idols on fleet-footed vessels may be unimaginative, but it sure is durable.

For a movie whose characters frequently lament their lack of top grade material, F1 is built exclusively from pristine parts. Lavishly financed by Apple Studios, the film prides itself on not cutting any cost-alleviating corners, shooting on location during its many (many) race sequences, and even inventing a new camera rig to capture footage from inside the cars themselves. The sights are exhilarating, their kinetic magnetism bolstered by Stephen Mirrione and Patrick J. Smith’s relentless editing, and Hans Zimmer’s throbbing electronic score, which fights through a cacophony of tactically roaring engines and shrieking tires. Throw in the enviable wardrobe budget and enough fireworks for a global New Year’s celebration, and you’ve got one of the most expensive looking features ever mounted. Modesty is nowhere to be found, to the point where opulence becomes part of the text.

It’s telling that the stakes of a mid-movie showcase essentially boil down to the dangers of not having the latest update on a luxury product, but if writer Ehren Kruger is self-aware about the champagne problems of his screenplay, he puts up an impressive mask. Maverick may have (charmingly, hilariously) dodged any sort of geo-political hand wringing by refusing to identify its uranium-hoarding antagonists, but its military-industrialized coding afforded it some semblance of dramatic heft. Peril is real out there on the track, but it’s quarantined to a land of wealth, with occupants in possession of millions in disposable income to throw at a reckless, inessential lark. Cruise’s airborne heroics were enough to head World War III off at the pass. Pitt and company do the lord’s work by ensuring that the 1% don’t have to rebalance any checkbooks, which is apparently more than enough to merit the cartoonishly hungry eyes that Condon keeps shooting his way.

Their relationship doesn’t make much sense, an up-and-coming technical director falling for a washed-up wheelman, but the Jennifer Connelly role was in need of filling. Same goes for the intergenerational strife that cellphone-addicted Idris receives from Glen Powell and Miles Teller like a Gen Z baton, or the Dad Rock bombast of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love picking up where The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again left off. We’re dealing with plagiarism of the highest order, but it’s not like Maverick was a game changer in the first place. Its rah-rah ecstasy was defined by retrenchment to a bygone era of dumb, noisy, and crucially uncluttered form of tentpole filmmaking, and when evaluated on those terms, F1 is a triumph. Like Sonny himself, it’s here to titulate, not teach, and those bothered by the copy-paste strategy, or the non-existent skepticism toward ultra-rich power brokers, are right to treat the whole enterprise with a level of suspicion. If you’re more interested in beautiful people in extravagant clothes moving at death-defying speeds, it’s basically beyond reproach. The cloning of Maverick extends beyond theme and narrative, and into the realm of visceral, qualitative accomplishment. It feels good to be back in the cockpit.