Film review: Weapons (2025)

I've been excited to see this film since before it came out, because it's the second film by the person responsible for Barbarian, which I thought was one of the best genre films in recent memory, and a film that I always recommend if a person wants to see a film that will constantly surprise them.  Weapons shares with Barbarian a basic horror format, this time with a sprinkling of the fantastic (well, Barbarian was certainly unrealistic, certainly in its crazy ending, but was in theory grounded in the possible, whereas this one involves actual magic).  What I liked about Barbarian was that it was laugh-out-loud funny, and this one is a lot less like that, although there are moments of absurd dialogue, particularly from the hapless cop Paul.  You could call this Zach Cregger's Pulp Fiction, because, not only is it a bigger-budget follow-up to a smash debut, it plays around with time a bit.  Having said that, it's not particularly experimental (it's not like Strange Darling, for example), but it does have you view the same events from different people's perspectives, so you keep rewinding and going over the same timeline.  At least, until you aren't, and the movie gallops towards its climax.

Here's the basic premise: you are told right up front about a bizarre event where all-but-one of the kids in an elementary school class get up at 2:17 AM one morning and run out of their houses 

(all running in the same strange Tina-from-Bob's Burgers arms-akimbo fashion) 

into the night, and vanish.  Suspicion from the distraught parents immediately falls on the young teacher of that class, Justine, 

played by the excellent Julia Garner, who is rather shockingly ordinary-looking for an in-demand young actress, showing that talent occasionally wins out.  But, apart from being a bit too fond of liquor, and having a DUI and a dismissal from a previous teaching job (for an affair with another member of staff), she doesn't appear guilty, and in fact is clearly devastated and desperate for answers herself.

Particularly keen to point the finger at Justine is Archer (we don't learn if that's a first or last name), 

played by Josh Brolin, who seems a little old to have a child in elementary school, but I suppose that's getting more common these days.  He is so distracted that he keeps fucking up at his job running a construction business (all of the houses featured in this film are incredibly nice, so it makes sense that he would have a high-powered job), but the wrongly-ordered paint he has to return comes in handy when an opportunity for intimidating Justine arises.  Justine and Archer are (I think) the first two characters whose names are announced at the beginning of a film section, indicating that we are about to see things though their eyes (although, not literally - this isn't Lady in the Lake).  Other important ones include the aforementioned Paul 

(played behind a big mustache by the impressively dowdified Alden Ehrenreich, who certainly doesn't look like the young Han Solo here), who is a recovering alcoholic and Justine-oholic, who falls off the wagon in both respects, to the disgust of his current squeeze Donna, who, to complicate his life, is the Chief's daughter.  And then there's James, 

who is the local ne'er-do-well druggy, who has repeated run-ins with Paul but who also inadvertently solves the mystery (or at least, finds the children).  The Paul-James dynamic is the nearest the film gets to comedy, and if anything, James comes off better in the comparison.

Next, and crucially, there's Alex, 

the sole remaining member of Justine's class, about whom she is worried, but from interacting with whom she is barred (although that doesn't stop her following him).  When his story comes to be told is when we truly understand the root cause of the whole affair, and the film moves fully from a mystery into horror.  The kid has to be excellent to carry the narrative weight, and this kid is - worryingly so, given what usually happens to talented child actors.  And also given the horrors the character gets to witness.

Finally among the characters who get a section named after them we have Marcus, 

Justine's Principal and all-round decent guy, played by Benedict Wong (which means Marvel fans get to witness a Wong-Thanos tussle).  His section ends up being particularly nasty, especially given how well-meaning he is.  (In fact, almost too nasty, so that the director seems teetering on the mean-spirited.  But you decide.)

I have not named a very key character, whose actor gives the most magnetic performance in the film, because that would be hard to do without revealing too much, but suffice to say this film has an excellent antagonist.  In fact, I think I'll leave it there, plot-wise, because it's practically impossible not to give key facts away, and the mystery element of the film is a key one.

Overall, I wasn't as wowed by it as Barbarian (of which we are reminded by Justin Long's quick cameo), but it was certainly gripping, once it got past its slow-burn beginning (which should also remind us of the slow-burn beginning of Barbarian, which turns out to be a MacGuffin).  Everybody played their parts very well, but one is left with a fair number of questions about The Rules of the particular supernatural elements (such as, how were the children being used? to what effect?), and while things are technically tied up at the end, one feels that more use could have been made of the antagonist.  Oh, and the title is a bit of a giveaway for the ending.  So, actually, I think it is like Pulp Fiction in that it has been a bit overpraised and I liked its predecessor more.  The question is, does Cregger have a Jackie Brown up his sleeve?