imfdb.org writes:
We have talked about realism with regard to firearms in movies before. Most of us still count shots, look for discrepancies, such as an empty 1911 “clicking” when empty or ridiculous effects of recoil and impact.
At times you can ignore these if you are just trying to enjoy a movie for the sake of entertainment, but other times they just stick in your head and frustrate you.
This happened to us this past weekend when we finally got to watch Kong: Skull Island.
After the military team lands on the island, after most of the unit has been decimated by Kong of course, my wife remarked: “Would any of those weapons have any effect on those creatures?”
Ignoring the smaller deer-sized and under type of animals I shook my head and said: “No”.
Of course I was thinking that they would need at least a 50 BMG.
Lo and behold, one of the soldiers, miles from the crash site mounts a Ma deuce on a Triceratops skull.
OK, what’s wrong with this scene?
Sure the Browning M2 50 caliber machinegun has been in service since 1921 and it is not out of place timeline wise. Yes, it’s the choice I would make for dispatching dinosaurs and giant monsters.
But how the hell did they get it there?
The gun weighs over 80 pounds and when transported by an Infantry Unit that is non-mechanized, it’s transported in three components: receiver, barrel and tripod. Not to mention ammunition.
We saw none of the soldiers transporting the gun this way.
It would have been more realistic to see the gun scavenged from a nearby crash site from a downed vehicle than to suspend disbelief and assume a single soldier hauled the M2 all through the movie.
Things like this can almost ruin an otherwise decent storyline.