Weapons (2025)
August 16th, 2025
Full and unedited thoughts:
Overall it’s good, almost great. I think what it is saying and how it says it works quite well; the malleability of the child’s conscious, the adult/child roles and how they can be reversed and what it means when they are, the barrier between childhood and adulthood and the way it functions when broken down. The way children interface with the world and how it is mediated by the adults in their lives is effectively communicated through the telling of Alex’s story, and I believe the addiction reading is just a microcosm of these larger ideas, conceptualized by a poison in the home leading a child needing to take on the adult role and keep up appearances outside of the home. All very nice! Also holy shit I think Alden Ehrenreich might be one of the best guys working! I have a few minor qualms with the movie though.
I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the structure that I don’t fully agree with, but I do get the sense that it is a) a Cregger-ism, which I don’t love. I was upset when I was reminded Barbarian hinges on a similar trick (although executed more effectively there). I hope he stops doing this! And b) it creates fake “reveals” and tricks you into thinking the film is doing more than it really is. I do appreciate seeing other characters’ perspectives during the same period so I can’t fully discredit it, but I do think it is manipulative in a way I don’t fully love.
I find that Alex’s portion of the film (although it is where the themes I love really come together) drags a bit. I think Cregger got too much momentum going in the prior section of the film to do such an elongated exposition dump so late, but again the story couldn’t be told any other way, I just wish he made this section a little more filmically interesting or cut it down a bit. Man does Cary Christopher kill it though.
The stick magic of it all I was disappointed by at first blush, but the setup of the climax in Alex’s house is so masterfully crafted I completely forgot any problems I had with it. Insanely cool stuff! This leads into my next issue though, which is (I’m sorry) the comedy. Now I’m not one to hate on horror comedy or to think things shouldn’t be funny, BUT in this case some of the humor bothered me quite a bit. Seriously affecting moments would be immediately followed with very boring “he said fuck” humor. You can’t be making this movie and be this insecure about doing earnest horror. Most of the time I found it quite funny/inoffensive, but especially at the very end it’s really egregious. Yes it is a little funny that all these kids are chasing an old woman. Ha ha. Do we need 15 different shots of MCU-level jokes in a row of them running through people’s houses? One or two would have done just fine. This moment unfortunately comes between the two best scenes in the movie, two scenes that had me frozen is absolute awe and terror, and it really just broke the whole thing down for me. That being said, the very ending is awesome.
Carter Haskins 