movie review
WEAPONS
Running time: 128 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use). In theaters.
During this lazy summer of comatose sequels, nothing has been scarier to Hollywood than an original idea.
So how sweet it is that one of the freshest and best movies of sweaty season is a brand new, freakily creative story from the horror genre.
No cardboard IP here.
But plenty of RIP.
The sharp and explosive “Weapons,” from “Barbarian” writer-director Zach Cregger, is powered by a quality the big screen has all but surrendered to more riveting TV dramas: Unpredictability.
Right from the spooky intro, in which we learn that 17 fifth graders from the same suburban classroom all mysteriously ran away from their homes at 2:17 a.m. one night and went missing, the plot unfolds in ways startling and twisty, disturbing and deceptive.
The experience is akin to being blindfolded and thrown into a trunk — except fun!
The film’s main question: Where did all the kids go?
Could their disappearance be a coordinated kidnapping, an act of God or perhaps an alien abduction?
That’s an intense problem to solve. One lost child in a film means high stakes, a ticking clock and big adult feelings. Multiply that by 17.
Something feels off about the community from the start. There are hints of the rapturey HBO drama “The Leftovers,” as well as the recent warped “Longlegs” with Nicolas Cage and the not-so-recent “Blair Witch Project.”
Cregger adds a bit of “It” and “Stranger Things,” too, in the way the movie probes the dark crevices of a seemingly nice, sleepy town as young people confront pure evil.
But who’s to blame for the crime?
The angry locals believe it’s the teacher Justine (Julia Garner). They vandalize her car and stalk her. But the cops can’t find any evidence to implicate the pithy, secretive woman.
Just one little boy in the class didn’t vanish — Alex (Cary Christopher, a 2025 Child of the Corn). He’s gotta know something, right?
Our final answer is peculiar and outlandish — frightening, oddly funny, eccentric, spine-tingling, grotesque and ultimately sad.
To arrive there, Cregger has built a puzzle that’s told in chapters, each devoted to a different character.
One belongs to Josh Brolin as a dogged parent, and another goes to Austin Abrams’ comedic Anthony, a burnout drug dealer who could be friends with someone named Silent Bob. Alden Ehrenreich, a great actor who hasn’t been around much lately, plays a troubled cop.
And Amy Madigan does a delicate dance as Aunt Gladys.
Garner, who exudes an energy that suggests she might pick a fight with somebody at the grocery store, fuels that sinister Main Street, USA, vibe with her enigmatic “Ozark” persona. The vicious actress is herself a weapon.
Most of the grown-ups here are deeply and engrossingly flawed: self-interested addicts, weirdos and brutes. In their own odd way, they each help the tale reach its satisfying conclusion, even if many of them don’t make it to the credits. No real hero emerges until the last 10 minutes.
This year, many movies have been boring, flabby, unnecessary, nostalgic, dumb, cheap or a burrito bowl of all of the above.
But I was never less than superglued to “Weapons.”
Clever Cregger proves, as Ryan Coogler did with “Sinners” back in the spring, that horror not only often has the most blood — it’s got the most guts.
