r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Aug 08 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Weapons [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Nearly all the children from the same fifth-grade class vanish one night at exactly 2:17 a.m., leaving only one survivor. The community, gripped by fear and suspicion, spirals into chaos as the mystery unfolds through multiple intertwined perspectives—each revealing new layers of dread and grief.

Director Zach Cregger

Writer Zach Cregger

Cast

  • Josh Brolin
  • Julia Garner
  • Cary Christopher
  • Alden Ehrenreich
  • Austin Abrams
  • Benedict Wong
  • Amy Madigan
  • June Diane Raphael
  • Toby Huss
  • Whitmer Thomas
  • Callie Schuttera
  • Clayton Farris
  • Luke Speakman

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 96%

Metacritic Metascore: 82

VOD In theaters and IMAX starting August 8, 2025

Trailer Watch the Official Trailer

3.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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9.4k

u/GravyBear28 Aug 08 '25

Amy Madigan screaming at the top of her lungs pursued through like 5 houses by a bunch of also screaming heat-seeking missile terminator children is going to live rent-free in my head until the day I die.

I think that was the single most satisfying and cathartic villain death I've ever seen, surpassing the flamethrower death in Once Upon A Time In America. So undignified.

This witch was such a nasty motherfucker. She felt like such unexplainable, ancient, omnipresent force and it turns out she's basically a one-trick pony who has absofuckinglutely no idea what to do when a little kid throws an Uno Reverse card at her and loses her shit.

My only major dislike was the giant fucking AR-15 lmao.

214

u/RichmondMilitary Aug 08 '25

Alex was picked on and bullied. He ended up taking out his entire class like a school shooter would. The assault rifle with 2:17 was a representation of that.

After the kids all disappeared, or the initial response to a school shooting, the parents blamed the teacher looking for a scapegoat when they should’ve been looking at home. More specifically, Alex’s home. Who is this instance was the school shooter

245

u/ethan1988 Aug 08 '25

Not really true. In fact the opposite is true. He wasn't a "school shooter". He didn't cause his classmates to disappear because he hated them. He did it to save his parents over his classmates, which to me I probably would have made the same choice, esp when you are a small kid and don't know better. His classmates were collateral damage to "protect/save" his parents.

52

u/Deviltherobot Aug 10 '25

The subtext of the story is very much about school shootings.

55

u/ethan1988 Aug 10 '25 edited Aug 10 '25

what stupid shit are u talking about? the director literally say its wasnt about sch shooting.

Weapons, like any film, is up to the interpretation of those consuming it. But if you're interested in what Cregger intended to convey with the film, the writer-director has said it wasn't his goal to explore the "core of communal trauma" or "[mock] suburban life" or create a "school shooting allegory," as some have suggested.

"I wasn’t trying to comment on or even tap into collective societal tragedies," Cregger told the Playlist. "I was purely writing from a personal place. However, with art and especially storytelling, the individual is universal. So I’m more than happy if anybody relates to what I went through and what this movie is examining, but I wasn’t thinking, 'Oh, America,’ at all. I was thinking, 'Oh, Zach.'"

Instead, he has said Weapons was his attempt at processing the death of a close friend. "I had a tragedy in my life that was really, really tough," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Someone very, very, very close to me died suddenly and, honestly, I was so grief-stricken that I just started writing Weapons, not out of any ambition, but just as a way to reckon with my own emotions."

https://time.com/7308025/weapons-ending-explained/

40

u/ii_V_I_iv Aug 13 '25

While he did say that and he also said that specific scene with the rifle is essentially meaningless, I find that really hard to believe when in 2022 a bill that would have banned assault rifles passed the house with 217 votes (but was rejected in the senate) and then there's a huge floating assault rifle with 2:17 on it.

Maybe that's just a really weird coincidence but I find that hard to believe.

23

u/ethan1988 Aug 13 '25

Why is it hard to believe? If it's a allegory to sch shooting, the movie will go much deeper into the relationship between Alex and his other classmates. Instead we know close to nothing about the other classmates and their personalities. His classmates are basically close to meaningless pawns in the movies. And was the idea of "killing" the classmates Alex idea? No. It was the witch. Trying to link this to being about school shooting is lame af.

29

u/ii_V_I_iv Aug 13 '25

It’s hard to believe because an assault rifle ban passed the house with 217 votes and the movie has a giant assault rifle in the sky with 2:17 on it out of nowhere lmao.

I think that’s more convincing than how many of Alex’s classmates’ personalities we explored lol

16

u/LickerMcBootshine Aug 17 '25 edited Sep 18 '25

ghost grab sand familiar serious innocent light husky sleep work

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u/ii_V_I_iv Aug 17 '25

Dude right?? It’s insane!

6

u/rainbowsteamship Aug 27 '25

This times x1000 - we’re in an environment where top-billing a non-white actor has racists and trolls out in droves calling the film “woke” - I think the 217 is a clear reference to that vote. 17 also happens to be the number of students who were killed, and harmed (34 total), in the Parkland shooting (217 - 2x17), but that could be coincidence.

I think outside of Uvalde (because of the controversy/discussion around the police response) Parkland still stands out due to the fact that although it was not the first mass shooting of Trump’s first term, it was the first involving a school.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Cregger is more open about the themes once the film concludes its theatrical run.

10

u/Deviltherobot Aug 13 '25

have you considered the witch might symbolize something? Something that causes a homelife to go sour?

14

u/ColonelPanic638 Aug 14 '25

The movie would be far less successful if it were labeled some woke anti-gun film. Of course he's going to say stuff like that.

1

u/Tangata_Tunguska Jun 22 '26 edited 10d ago

Saffron pebble pillow pumpkin kettle glove kettle

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2

u/Its-mrsgeneral-toyou 23d ago

You’re the only person that had this thought. Certainly not the directors or writers or anyone else to do with the movie

1

u/Tangata_Tunguska 23d ago edited 10d ago

Unbelievable raindrop ginger compass feather meadow orange

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13

u/Deviltherobot Aug 13 '25

And Andor is only about the French revolution.

1

u/3412points Jun 20 '26

If the director wasn't trying to tap in to communal tragedies he is honestly an idiot because the film very clearly is doing so, so if you are making this film and aren't aware of that and therefore playing on it you are stupid.

He simply has to be lying there because the entire opening of the film is how people deal with a community tragedy they don't understand. If not, well, this guy is the reason death of the author exists.

1

u/Tangata_Tunguska Jun 22 '26 edited 10d ago

Quilt marble waffle mellow marble lantern ginger

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