Weaksauce Weakness / Film

Films — Animation

• This trope appears as a pastiche in Bolt. The titular dog believes he has superpowers because he never leaves the set of a TV show. When he is accidentally shipped across the country his powers "mysteriously" vanish, and he blames the Styrofoam packing peanuts he was shipped with.
• Invoked by Syndrome in The Incredibles with the Omnidroid. It was built for an Engineered Heroics scheme, so he designed it to be nigh-invulnerable and unstoppable... to anything except the remote control that Syndrome wore on his wrist. It doesn't end well for him when the Omnidroid's adaptive A.I. adapts to cover for that weakness, but it does eventually allow the heroes to win, after a period of desperately playing keep-away while the Omnidroid attempted to destroy the remote.
• The King and I has this in the form of every single solitary minion the Big Bad conjures up. His first pair of minions are giant traditional Chinese dragons who ruthlessly attack the teacher's ship to the point that it's near sinking. How are they defeated? Whistling. Everyone aboard whistles a happy tune and they dissolve into nothingness.
• Stitch of Lilo & Stitch is speedy, clever, and able to lift 3000 times his own size, but still has comedic weaknesses:
  • He is too heavy to swim. One reason falling in water is so damaging is that Stitch tends to panic when he's underwater. He eventually starts to handle deep water better; one episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series (the theme of which was conquering your fears) had him fall into a swimming pool, but he manages to keep calm, hold his breath, and climb out without issue.
  • He might be able to lift 3000 times his own size, but not an ounce more. Gantu was able to have a pile of stuff crush Stitch by placing a feather on it.
• Megamind: Metro Man has a weakness to copper, which causes Megamind to kill him without even meaning to. (Except that he actually made it up in order to fake his death and retire.) This is even lampshaded by Megamind:
  Megamind: Your weakness is copper!? You're kidding, right?
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines: The PAL Robots' main weakness is that they are unable to tell if Monchi is a dog, a pig, or a loaf of bread, and they'll short-circuit while trying to figure it out.
• In The Nutcracker, the evil mice explode if they sneeze, so any sneeze-inducing substance is deadly to them. In the Nutcracker Prince's backstory, his father the King defeats the Mouse Queen by dousing her with pepper.
• In The Princess and the Goblin, the goblins have two weaknesses: really squishy feet (the Queen wears stone shoes) and singing. They freak out when they hear people sing. At least it's a nice song.
• In Thomas and the Magic Railroad, Mr. Conductor manages to scare Diesel 10 off... by threatening to throw a bag of sugar into his fuel tank.
• The Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine are repelled by positivity in any form. This doesn't work out so badly, though, since their entire arsenal is built around the proliferation of depression and despair, but it does still leave them vulnerable to music.

Films — Live-Action

• The Tenctonese in Alien Nation (the movie as well as the series) are harmed by salt water. Seawater is like acid to them. They live mostly on the Californian coast; while they do develop a tolerance to it, direct exposure is still harmful to them. There is a slightly funny moment when the police find the partially dissolved body of a Newcomer washed up on the beach. When asked how they were able to identify him, they simply shrug and show his soaked wallet. All his clothes are, naturally, fine too.
• The Tomatoes in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! have a weakness to high-pitched singing, in the form of a song called "Puberty Love".
• The Psychlo homeworld of Battlefield Earth can be blown to (relatively) tiny bits with a nuclear explosion. You'd think that a nuclear bomb is substantial enough to bypass the Weaksauce bit, but remember that this is a PLANET. It'd be like a human exploding in a smear of gore after stubbing their toe. The given reason is that the planet's atmosphere ignites upon the slightest exposure to radiation. This, of course, implies that the planet completely lacks any heavy elements and has an insane set of Van Allen belts to protect it from any stellar radiation.
• As is the usual with horror movie monsters, the titular character of Blackenstein is Immune to Bullets, fists, and blunt objects — traits which, when added to his Super-Strength, seemingly make him all but unstoppable. What is it that finally lays the mighty monster low? The primal forces of nature themselves or divine intervention? No. The police sic the hounds on him. That's it. Doberman Pinscher fangs trump bullets, apparently.
• Black Sheep (2007): The were-sheep are horrible monsters, but they're mentally still sheep, so a single sheepdog is enough to contain them.
• In The Day of the Triffids, the title monsters are melted by sea water. Nearly as lame. In the original novel, ironically, flame-throwers are among the most effective anti-Triffid weapons.
• In Dead Gentlemen Productions' (of The Gamers fame) running Demon Hunters series, Duamerthrax the Indestructible is a walking brick that is, well, all but indestructible. He's an "earthwalker", a demon said to have been kicked out of hell for being too mean. Unlike other monsters and demons in the mythos, he's not susceptible to ordinary injury. He can eat the round of a large-caliber revolver jammed in his mouth ("Mmm! Nice 'n' leady!") casually regrows limbs after being dismembered, and generally shrugs off what few injuries he even takes while making terrible puns. So what's the convenient balance? We're told that every earthwalker has a weakness to some substance, "a plant, metal, anything". Duamerthrax's turns out to be mint. Being shot repeatedly at close range with numerous handguns does little more than inconvenience him, but the breath of someone having just used breath spray causes him intense pain, water-guns full of mouthwash can inflict serious harm and mint dental floss can do even worse things. Ultimately subverted; he turns out to have faked his defeat when the body count got where he needed it, regenerated almost immediately, and the credits show him happily dancing away. Then he gets hit by a car and sent back to hell in the beginning of the second movie.
• In Ernest Scared Stupid, what's scaring Ernest so much are a variety of trolls who, legend has it, are vulnerable to... milk.
• Played for Laughs in Evolution (2001), in which the aliens' critical weakness is to selenium, the best local source of which is in dandruff shampoo.
• The weakness to light appears in The Eye Creatures (because it's an almost word-for-word remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men, below).
• The aliens in Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres are physically tough, can teleport, and can appear as any person they desire. What's their weakness? Water (note: the film predates Signs by a few decades). Apparently, they're Mechanical Lifeforms (they're shown drinking motor oil at one point) and rust at the slightest touch of water in a matter of minutes. The worst part? They came in peace! It was the gendarmes' aggressiveness that made them hostile. In the end, the aliens are destroyed (with water, naturally), and the gendarmes are hailed as heroes.
• Godzilla:
  • In Godzilla (2014), Godzilla's arms are very stubby compared to the rest of him. The male M.U.T.O took advantage of this a couple of times by jumping on his head and stabbing away at him with those long forelegs, with Godzilla having an extremely difficult time dislodging him since he could barely touch the top of his head. They are plenty strong, though, and he uses them to fight the female Muto.
  • King Ghidorah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) is a nigh-unstoppable living extinction event whose very wing-flaps create hurricanes. His notable weakness? The same enormous wings that grant him superpowered flight also make him incredibly ungainly in water, rendering him almost entirely defenceless when Godzilla drags him into the ocean.
• Hancock's only weakness? His real wife. Any attempt to live a loving, fulfilling life with his wife of 3,000 years will cause them to both become mortal in order to die together. Unfortunately, Hancock has a hero complex to save people, which attracts bad guys who attack them in their weakened state. They argue, he leaves, they meet again and the whole cycle starts again. His wife says the gods who created them gave this as a gift — so that they could find love and be happy, and not have to see everyone they care about die as they remain unchanged and alive.
• In Hook, the Lost Boys exploit Captain Hook's fear of the sound of ticking clocks, which they attribute to Hook's memories of being pursued by a clock-swallowing giant crocodile. Subverted when Peter points out that Hook can't really be afraid of the crocodile, which he killed years ago; rather, Hook is afraid of time, as he's become an old man beneath his wig and make-up, and old age is hardly a fear that can be dismissed as Weaksauce.
• Hungerford: The bugs don't like body spray. If a mind-controlled human host is sprayed, they'll fall to the ground, clutching their faces, and then the bug will leap out of their neck.
• Invasion of the Saucer Men: The aliens are melted by light. There is nothing lamer. Especially considering that they're done in by the headlights of teenage hot rodders!
• The playable characters in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle all have lists of strengths and weaknesses. Some weaknesses, like Ruby's weakness to venom, make sense, but others, like Mouse exploding if he takes one bite of cake, are just silly.
• In The Lair of the White Worm, a vampire's natural enemy is the mongoose due to vampires in this universe being Snake People. The mongoose ends up getting killed anyway, but it's still enough to make the Big Bad retreat for a while. Also, playing the bagpipes puts them in a trance (unless they have earplugs).
• Land of Oz:
  • The Wizard of Oz gives the trope-codifying example: the Wicked Witch of the West melted when Dorothy splashed her with a bucket of water.
  • Return to Oz continues the proud tradition of Oz villains having an unexpected, thorough weakness that kills them on the spot. In this case, the Nome King (and seemingly Nomes in general) find regular chicken eggs to be extremely poisonous. All of them react to Dorothy bringing a chicken along like she had an armed bomb with her, and when the King accidentally ingests one of its eggs he dies (and falls apart) within the minute.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Blaster is Master's immense enforcer. According to people who want him dead and have been hunting for the right assassin to get the job done, "He can kill most men with his breath." His weakness: he can't stand high-pitched noises. Max discovers this when the car alarm on his vehicle renders Blaster into a writhing, screaming, mess — and promptly figures out that his whistle can have the same effect. Not a surprise, given that this is a common problem for people with Down's Syndrome.
• Sensory Overload for the Kryptonians in Man of Steel. Good thing Supes learns how to control it. Unfortunately, so does Zod.
• Mars Attacks!: The Martians' weakness is hearing high-pitched yodeling, such as in the song "Indian Love Call" by Slim Whitman, which causes their heads to explode.
• In The Mole People, a lost colony of ancient Sumerians living Beneath the Earth have adapted to their lightless conditions to the point that our heroes can kill them with a flashlight.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Knights Who Say "Ni!" are sent into unbearable pain upon hearing the word "it".
• The Mummy (1999): Imhotep in his incomplete form is immediately chased away when a cat is in his presence, because they guard the Underworld. Naturally, the heroes never do anything to exploit this weakness, such as by putting cats in the room full of the people he needs to kill to stop being vulnerable to cats.
• Mystery Men: Invisible Boy's weakness is anybody looking at him while he is invisible. (Machines, like motion detectors and cameras, don't trigger this.)
• The undead mutant warrior things from Neon Maniacs are virtually invulnerable except, like many other things on this list, they can be dissolved with a squirt gun.
• The titular character in Nightmare Man is a pretty powerful fertility god: he can kill people, grab and crush people's hearts by sticking his hand in, control dead people as puppets, et cetera. His weakness: if the person he's possessed is on anti-psychotic pills, he can't do anything at all.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy Krueger, the nigh-unstoppable humanoid monster that can kill you in your dreams, has a weakness to people not believing in him. This becomes far funnier when you realise that his weakness is the same as Tinkerbell's!
• In Night of the Demons (2009), the demons are vulnerable to rust.
• Peelers: The infected can be killed with water. The apparent logic behind this is because the two substances are as incompatible as oil and water.
• The Bioraptors (also called "Demons") of Pitch Black has a similar weakness to light. Though this actually works, as most of the movie is during a solar eclipse and they broke their flashlights. Oddly enough, the creatures are shown moving about in the light, albeit cautiously, before the eclipse. Compare this to later on, when a lighter is enough to make them run away...
• From 1966 superhero parody Rat Pfink A Boo Boo: "Remember, Boo Boo, we have only one weakness... bullets."
• In RoboCop (1987), the Killer Robot ED-209 chasing the title character is taken out of play simply by trying to chase RoboCop downstairs that its chicken-walker legs are ill-suited to negotiate. Somewhat justified in that the ED-209 is just meant to look intimidating and get bought up by the military, not to do real police work.
• R.O.T.O.R. is about a robotic policeman gone mad. He's almost unstoppable except for being paralyzed by loud noises. This might not sound that dumb, until you witness him repeatedly frozen by people honking their car horns at him or playing a radio a little too loud.
• The aliens in Signs. It's hard to feel threatened (retrospectively) by creatures which will dissolve in an April shower or corrode in a particularly humid breeze. And are completely incapable of breaking down wooden doors.
• Death in Six String Samurai is killed when squirted with water, in an Homage to The Wizard of Oz.
• Sleepwalkers has monsters that are Made of Iron, except when scratched by house cats.
• The film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles gives the villains several Weaksauce Weaknesses they didn't have in the original book series:
  • Tomato sauce, vinegar and salt are effective at hurting goblins, with the former being outright corrosive to their bodies.
  • Mulgarath's bird form is just as fragile as a real bird, as Hogsqueal happily demonstrates by snatching and devouring him.
• The Super Cop in Super Fuzz has super-speed, super-strength, invulnerability, telekinesis and so on, but he completely loses his powers when he sees the color red (probably a nod to Green Lantern and his vulnerability to yellow): a red traffic light, a red flower, a red ribbon, and he's harmless.
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace brings us the horror that is Nuclear Man who, for reasons unknown, is powered solely by the sun. The minute he is out of direct sunlight, he stops dead. Even if he's in a well-lit room but slightly in the shade, he's next to worthless. This is especially pathetic when you consider that in canon, Superman's own powers are ultimately derived from sunlight, but he doesn't power down in the shade — at least not unless he has to use his powers a lot before the next time he can catch some rays.
• In the Affectionate Parody superhero movie Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes, both the hero and villain have their powers nullified by the presence of peppy music. Fortunately, the hero is able to save the day with his incredible accuracy with slingshots.
• In Syngenor, the title creatures were created to be the perfect soldiers for a war with the Middle East. They don't need to eat or sleep, are immune to most weaponry, and reproduce every twenty-four hours. Their only weakness? Water is like acid to them. It's somewhat hard to be afraid of a Super-Soldier that can be defeated with a super-soaker — or, if worst came to worst, by peeing on them.
• Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation is every bit as tough and unstoppable as you would expect from a terminator... except for his glaring exposed weak point in the form of his organic human heart (which isn't even covered with any sort of armor; it just hangs there in a big gaping hole in his chest, leaving it completely exposed to any stray pistol shot or well-aimed punch).
• In The Thing (1982), the titular monster's assimilation powers only have one big flaw; it acquires the weaknesses of its victims alongside their strengths. When it assimilates Norris, it unwittingly copies the heart condition he suffers from, which leads to it having a heart attack during a stressful moment. Things go From Bad to Worse when the rest of the team tries to resuscitate "Norris" with a defibrillator, forcing the Thing to transform and blow its cover in order to stop the painful electric shocks.
• Thor: Ragnarok: Even though Thor is the God of Thunder and has the power of Shock and Awe, he's still vulnerable to electric attacks from others.
• In The Traveler, the only way to counter Mr. Nobody is actually by letting him hear his real full name, which will make him lose powers and become vulnerable to physical attacks. Kinda makes sense for him to conceal his identity throughout the film.
• The goblins from Troll 2 are defeated when Joshua eats a double-decker bologna sandwich in front of them during the film's climax. They can't come within twenty feet of you after you eat two bites of bologna.
• In Unbreakable, water is used as a weakness for the main superhero character. In this case, though, it isn't that he is especially vulnerable to water, but rather he is just as susceptible to drowning as a normal person. If he drinks something too quickly, he will choke, and if he is submerged, he will succumb to drowning just like everyone else — though it's theorized that the dense bone and muscle that make him unbreakable also make him unfloatable (or the character simply can't swim). There is a complicating factor in the scene where he ends up almost drowning in a swimming pool: he's tangled up in a big piece of fabric, which would give anyone a bad time while in water. It is also a psychological weakness: he had almost drowned once as a child (probably due to the aforementioned bone density), an event so traumatic he blocked it from his memory. That would make anyone nervous around water, even if they couldn't remember why.
• In Up, Up and Away!, the weakness of the superhero family is aluminum foil. However, it's never made clear if it was just their family or all supers who are vulnerable to foil. Both Spider-Man and Superman are mentioned to exist in this 'verse, and they don't have any weakness to aluminum foil (although Supes has his own weakness). The bad guys definitely assume that all supers have this weakness, as, when Randy claims to have powers, they give him some foil to test it.
• Zoolander: Derek Zoolander can't turn left until his Big Damn Heroes moment. (Though continuity nitpicks will note that he does turn left (relative to himself, though not the camera) while in disguise while trying to retrieve Maury's computer.)

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