Weapons: A wasted potential

My most anticipated movie of the year resulted in absolute disappointment, and when I say ANTICIPATED I'm talking messaging my friend only discussing this movie level of anticipation.

I went into this movie with extremely high expectations due to various key reasons, those reasons being. From the Director Zack Cregger who brought me the unhinged masterpiece Barbarian (2022), from JORDAN PEELE (My favourite Director of all time) firing his management team for loosing the bidding war in order to produce this movie, from Warner Bros pushing the release date from January 2026 to 2025 due to positive feedback from early test screenings, and of course a very well executed trailer. What I received in return was one of the biggest wastes of potential in modern cinema.

The big central question that this story asks is Why? Why did 17 kids from the same class all decide to get up at 2:17am, get out of bed, walk downstairs, and run off into the dark and never come back. An extremely compelling hook in terms of it's structure but fails to keep your attention with the content we receive. Cregger shows vivid inspiration from Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999) as we shift perspectives from not just one character but several characters - who each have their own individual storylines as they all slowly begin to unravel the horrifying mystery one perspective at a time.

Josh Brolin and Amy Madigan were easily the standout performers deserving full praise for brining both depth and authenticity to their characters, unlike the rest of the cast - who all play characters that suffered from having very limited development (Not the actors fault), made it extremely difficult for the audience to invest or even care about their presence on screen.

Although showing the same scene twice and having the experience of seeing how everything was perceived differently makes for a very intriguing element, it quickly begins to feel underwhelming due to the unbearable amount of scenes that truly go no where, along with a few scenes that leave you with questions with no actual payoff - which can certainly leave an audience with a dosage of confusion or maybe even feeling slightly irritated.

Overall, I didn't hate Weapons. Whatever message Zack Cregger was aiming for with this story, it just felt like it got lost halfway through the chaos and just decided last minute to go with the theme of neglectful parents.