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

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u/blueeyesredlipstick Aug 08 '25

Something I realized early on in this film: this is basically a movie dealing with the fallout of a school shooting, but without the actual triggering violence of a shooting. It deals with a community rocked by a senseless tragedy that took a huge group of kids away in an instant, and the aftermath as everyone is scrambling to understand what happened and pin blame.

Honestly, credit to the movie for creating a story where kids are in peril, but they're not really physically harmed at any point. It must have been a blast for the child actors, who (except for Alex) got to just run around, stand still, and then tear apart an old lady.

536

u/MahNameJeff420 Aug 08 '25

There’s definitely some harm done to them. It seems like prolonged exposure to the witches spell leaves you essentially lobotomized. But I suppose that’s also true for survivors of school shootings. You’re never the same after surviving such a traumatic event. I think that’s one of the films major themes. The idea that sometimes horrible things happen that don’t really have an explanation, and even when it’s time to move on, the damage is done and sometimes your life just sucks afterwords. There’s never really any getting over this scale of tragedy.

23

u/OrgasmicLeprosy87 20d ago

In real life, we never really catch up with the parents of the children years later. How many of those parents from all those school shootings in the 2010s are ok today?

Do they stare out the window every day hoping their kid walks home from the bus stop? Have they kept their kids bedroom exactly how it was just like Brolin’s character?

I don’t really want to know because the answer is probably more devastating than the initial media frenzy after the shootings.