Where does one even begin with a movie like Weapons (2025)? Director and screenwriter Zach Cregger (the man behind Barbarian) cooks up this wild concept that pulls you in, only to spend the next two hours convincing you, “This is bound to make sense soon… isn’t it?” Spoiler alert: your brain will still probably be doing cartwheels when the lights come up.
Unless you’re ready to play internet sleuth and dive into Reddit rabbit holes to decode it, Weapons leaves you thinking that maybe we missed the memo, or maybe it really is just intentionally nonsensical. Rolling into theaters on a tidal wave of hype and applause, we were honestly hoping for more of a horror banger with solid scares than what we got.
A Quirky Start That Misses the Mark
Right out of the gate, it opens with this whimsical kid’s narration that feels like it was better suited for a Pixar movie. You’re left side-eyeing the screen, not quite sure what to make of it, as this pint-sized voice recounts the events that unfolded in the town of Maybrook, where 17 kids from the same elementary class slipped out of their homes at 2:17 a.m. and vanished into the inky night. Lines like “the parents were very upset” hit like a third-grader’s diary entry, leaving you torn between smirking and eye-rolling.
This kooky opener feels distracting, leaving you already fearing the worst. As Maybrook’s townsfolk unite as a mob against the class teacher, Justine (played by Julia Garner), whom they blame for the incident, the movie slowly plods along for a good 35 minutes, feeling oddly stagnant at times with quirky, cryptic vibes that never quite land. It leaves you wondering if the hype was just hot air, until, of course, Cregger’s wild ride shifts gears.
Cregger leans hard into ambiguity, stitching together Maybrook’s mystery of the missing children through fragmented character vignettes. The narrative’s core emerges from the non-linear slices of Justine, Archer, Paul, James, Marcus, and Alex.
Disarray by Design
The movie meanders through Garner’s misunderstood Justine as she desperately tries to coax secrets out of Alex (Cary Christopher), the sole survivor from her class of missing children. It finally hits its stride with Josh Brolin as Archer, a desperate single dad whose child is among Maybrook’s vanished. He spirals into tinfoil-hat detective mode, scouring Ring cameras and clashing with Justine, and in our book, Brolin is the undisputed MVP of the cast.
The remaining vignettes are good but lack enough depth to really get you invested, as Cregger sprinkles a bit of inventive chaos into each segment before moving on. There’s Alden Ehrenreich as Paul, the gritty, no-BS cop; Austin Abrams as James, a strung-out junkie teetering on the edge; Benedict Wong as Marcus, Maybrook’s frazzled principal; and finally, the surviving Alex, who, along with his family, has to deal with a dose of the bizarre when his Aunt Gladys comes to visit.
Together, they collide to amplify the movie’s disorienting energy as you scramble to crack the case and piece together clues, endlessly puzzling over how it all fits. The harder you chase coherence, the more it becomes clear that the movie never intended to hand you a tidy solution. The best way to describe it is audacious, mind-bending storytelling that drags you through an unpredictable rollercoaster.
The lack of clarity and a proper conclusion remains Weapons’ twisted badge of honor, and we’re not entirely on board with it, as the residents of Maybrook run around with arms outstretched like deranged airplanes. Cregger’s gamble on blending disarray and dark comedy will no doubt leave audiences divided.