Once Mr. Cregger starts to let loose his revelations […] disappointment creeps in, and the scale and soul of the film shrink before our eyes. It’s impossible to say how without getting into spoilers. But the movie’s potential richness, kept in play by its ever-circling narrative style, is finally brought crashing to the ground by its denouement, which settles into serviceably entertaining horror hijinks, seasoned with a dose of feverish save-the-children paranoia that, in the age of QAnon and other such conspiracy theories, struck me as ill-considered at best.
— Zachary Barnes (The Wall Street Journal)
Many of the tangible, soul-scraping anxieties Cregger weaponizes in Weapons are red herrings, and gradually fall by the wayside in favor of what he’s actually getting at. Your mileage might vary but what he’s getting at seems a lot less frightening, and a lot more contrived, than it would have had he not invited us to ponder more powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand. The terrible things people do to each other because they’re afraid of a monster are, in the end, more frightening than any monster.
— William Bibbiani (The Wrap)
Synopsis: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.