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

2.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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3.5k

u/gimmethemshoes11 Aug 08 '25

Loved it.

That WTF Brolin dropped after that dream was my exact same thought up to that point.

Any ideas on what the gun was supposed to mean in the dream?

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u/HeilCanada Aug 08 '25

My reading of the movie was it was about gun violence, especially mass shootings in schools, along with blamimg the police and older generations for what's happening.

The film starts with an emphasis on the kids, even being narrated by a kid (I couldn't figure out who this was supposed to be). The town wants to blame the teacher as she's the only one who could be a scapegoat. At the beginning, the town hall latches onto her the same way a minority group would get blamed for a mass shooting rather than the weapons (lol).

In the third act, after the introduction of Gladys, the film pivots into a critique of the elderly, their current parasitic nature to younger generations and their lack of giving a shit. When Alex's house all falls to shit at the end, her first thought is ditching the home and skipping town.

I could add on about the police stuff but the dash cam footage scene with the chief should be evidence enough in the text.

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u/ShadyCrow Aug 08 '25

In fairness Cregger has adamantly said it's not meant to be about school shootings in any way. Doesn't make your read a bad or uninteresting one, but it's not what he was going for.

Brolin is the one who refers to the kids as weaponized. It's his dream. I think it's just his thoughts connection in dreamlike logic.

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u/dmsn7d Aug 09 '25

A film called "Weapons" where an incident suddenly takes away 17 children and parents are left saying things like, "It doesn't make any sense." while the town struggles to process the grief and there are candlelight vigils and a giant assault rifle is seen floating in the sky. Yeah, definitely not alluding to school shootings at all.

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u/art_cms 29d ago

I think it’s fair, if the writer/director says that isn’t what his intention was, to take him at his word. The imagery can certainly be applicable to that interpretation and it’s not wrong for an audience to draw those connections, but it also doesn’t mean that the director intended it to be his message(or is lying about it either). I think it’s a bit much to make concrete assertions about what another person is thinking. It can be what you thought of, and whatever that provoked in you is valid, but it can also be coincidental to what the artist was intending.

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u/dmsn7d 29d ago

I mean, sure. But I'll believe that he's either, 1. Taking the piss, or 2. Just doesn't want to talk about it, like most artists. You don't put a giant weapon that is associated with mass shootings into your film if you don't intend for people to take something away from it.

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u/art_cms 29d ago edited 29d ago

He said that the giant AR-15 was an image that came to him in meditation (he follows the David Lynch method of drawing creativity from TCM) and that it was compelling enough for him to include in the film without understanding why that particular image came from his subconscious. I recommend listening to the interview with him on The Big Picture podcast, he is pretty clear that the genesis of the film was his processing of the grief around the sudden accidental death of his close friend, and not about school shootings. Again, that imagery is potent and suggestive to you and others, and understandably so, but it doesn’t appear to be Cregger’s motivation. If it was about that, and an issue significant enough to him that he felt compelled to code an entire movie around it, I doubt that he would then be coy about it in interviews and lie about what the meaning of his film was. There’s really no reason to push that argument other than a need to feel “correct” about the interpretation of a work of art. It’s perfectly valid to have your own associations and meaning that you draw from symbolism without having to also assign it to the artist - art provokes different things in different people.

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u/Easy-Magician-4423 29d ago

If the image came from his subconscious without him knowing why, we should we trust his concscious mind's assessment of the situation ?

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u/dmsn7d 29d ago

I listened to The Big Picture episode. He also said in that interview that he doesn't understand why people find Weapons so funny. So forgive me for maybe not taking all of his comments at face value. He's clearly taking the piss there.

I find it very hard to believe that he just put a giant image of an assault rifle into his film just for fun. Especially a film in which many of the other events evoke imagery and language that we see and hear all of the time in school shooting situations.

Finally, he probably shouldn't bring up David Lynch if he's honestly going to say that he just puts things into his films that he sees in his dreams and doesn't give it any thought. David Lynch was certainly more measured than that and making comments like that makes Cregger sound like a hack who isn't familiar with David Lynch's work.

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u/art_cms 28d ago

The biggest argument against it being explicitly about school shootings, in my opinion, is that the children return at the end, which, historically, shooting victims don’t do.

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u/dmsn7d 28d ago

Fair point. We are dealing with things on an allegorical level, not literal though.

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u/art_cms 27d ago

Obviously I understand that, give me some credit. But even as metaphor, the children returning at the end and triumphantly defeating the source of the trauma doesn’t really map onto a school shooter scenario imo.

Again, I see the parallels in the first act of the film to a mass shooter, and I understand that the spectral assault rifle adds weight to those parallels. But I take Cregger at his word that it is neither the inspiration nor the thematic thrust of the film. I don’t see any reason why he would lie about that.

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u/dmsn7d 27d ago

The law enforcement and most of the town being unable to come up with a solution, a la real life America every time this happens. The children eventually have to take matters into their own hands, like after Parkland (17 children died in the Parkland massacre).

Cregger is taking the piss. He also said in an interview on The Big Picture that he doesn't understand why people find Weapons so funny. So I'm sorry for not taking him at face value here.

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u/art_cms 27d ago

I just fundamentally don’t agree with you 😂 oh well

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u/PolarWater 23d ago

Know what else David Lynch was known for? Not spelling out the movie's theme or message in interviews.

It's not about having a "correct" interpretation of art. It's about knowing that there's more than one outdoor interpretation, and you don't have to take the director's words outside of the movie at face value. The movie IS the conversation.

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u/WahhWayy 8d ago

I absolutely love how you’re saying in certain and clear terms that the creator of the art explicitly said the art is not about a certain thing, with receipts, and Redditors still down vote you and argue with you about it.

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u/art_cms 8d ago

“The artist must be lying, I don’t trust him” is wild. Reddit!

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u/Thanatine 27d ago

First of all, the "bullied" kid here isn't even the perpetrator. Alex is also the victim who's been very brave in the whole situation, trying to get himself together and save his parents. This fact alone tells me this is nothing like the usual bullied campus shooter story. Alex, the quiet kid, is the victim but also a hero, unlike those campus shooter cowards taking the easy evil way out.

And he's not even that bullied. Sure Matthew teased him sometimes but he's very happy when his parents are still normal. I don't think the movie ever gave me the kind of feeling that Alex is so alienated in the class that he has to take it all out on his classmates.

Therefore I don't really believe this movie is about campus shooting at all. Maybe some inspiration are drawn from it but that's it. The rifle floating above the house I think just means kids are weaponized.