Factual error: In the scene when Will is opening the drawer of films from the Leeds home, there is clearly a copy of Mrs. Doubtfire in the left column of tapes. How can that be? Red Dragon is clearly set "several years" after 1980, as the caption says, but before the 1991 Silence of the Lambs, but "Mrs. Doubtfire" came out in 1993.
Factual error: In the museum, Peter is filming in real-time moving biological specimens shot through 'the largest electron microscope on the Eastern seaboard'. You can't film live specimens in an electron microscope. The electron beam only works in a vacuum chamber, in which the specimen - invariably dead - is held. The microscope is identified as a scanning electron microscope, and nobody can fire an electron stream through air. The electrons will collide with gas molecules and scatter, ruining the image.
Factual error: The time period of the movie is 2054. There is an election day (April 22nd) that is on a billboard and then announced as a Tuesday. However, April 22nd, 2054 is actually on a Wednesday.
Factual error: A force of Russian Tu-22 Backfire bombers attacks the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) by sneaking in under the ship's radar. This is all well and good except that carriers usually don't use their own radar, they have Airborne Early Warning aircraft (E-2 Hawkeye's) that can see much further and not give away the carrier's position (let alone the F-14s which would be patrolling too) not to mention the fleet of destroyers other ships guarding the carrier. The whole point is, the US Navy practiced and planned for such a "carrier versus Backfire" battle for years. I guess in the interest of furthering the plot Hollywood has to ignore the immense measures the USN takes to protect those multi-billion dollar assets, not to mention the 5000+ sailors that man them.
Factual error: After the intruders flood the panic room with propane, Jody Foster's character gets a lighter and ignites the propane causing it to burn along the ceiling. This would be impossible as propane is heavier than air and would sink to the floor rather than rise up to the ceiling. Lighting a flame in that room should have caused anyone in the room and on the floor to be engulfed in flames almost instantly.
Factual error: During the scene in which Bond escapes from MI6 custody, after inducing a drop in heartbeat, he seizes the defibrillator paddles and uses them to shock the two male orderlies. However, only one of those paddles would have administered a shock. The other one is only there to form a circuit for the electric charge. Therefore, at best, it should only have shocked one of the orderlies. (00:25:15)
Factual error: When they first pick up the Mona Lisa, they show the back. There you can see a canvas sheet over a wooden framework. However, the Mona Lisa is painted directly onto wood, no canvas at all. The scan they run even says it's painted onto wood, despite visual evidence to the contrary. (00:06:35)
Factual error: The gold bars that the crew finds must be some new type of lightweight gold. There's no way that Julianna could stuff a gold bar in her back pocket and then pull it out and toss it on the table and Greer simply tosses it back and forth like it was plastic. A gold bar weighs around 27 pounds, you definitely wouldn't be tossing it around. (00:42:05 - 00:47:50)
Factual error: In the DJ spin-off scene, Zach and Francessca help make Meeker cool by going into hypertime and giving him a dance lesson. At one point, we see Zach and Francessca in hypertime making Meeker do flips. Then, in real time, we see that Meeker is doing the flips at the same speed that he was doing in hypertime. Wouldn't he be going a lot faster in real time, not the same speed as he was in hypertime?
Factual error: Xander puts a load of those sticky bombs on a line of motorbikes outside the bad guy's house. These bombs had a detonator switch, which Xander has. When he eventually sets them off, the motorbikes blow up in the order that he put the bombs on. These bombs didn't have timers or anything on them, so why would they blow up one by one and not all at the same time? (01:09:50 - 01:20:30)
Factual error: All the scenes which are supposed to play in Zürich were being shot in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. The director didn't choose Zürich because the city was too clean for him. The signs on the walls are sometimes written in Czech language, and the people speak German with a strange (Czech) accent, not like someone from Zürich.
Factual error: When the special forces arrive in the Station of the hive, the computer identifies the soldier`s weapons. The name under the picture is right, but the picture always shows an MP5, even at the soldier carrying a G36 Assault rifle. (00:19:20)
Factual error: All swords in this movie are made from steel, and in the beginning it's said that the film takes place years before the Pyramids were built (they were built around 3200 BC). Steel wouldn't be around for 2000 more years. (00:03:50 - 00:12:40)
Factual error: When May cuts her eye out with the scissors at the end of the movie, the fake eyeball used for the effect is perfectly round. A human eyeball is far from being perfectly round.
Factual error: In the scene where Noah analyses the tape, he says that the 'timecode' seems to be invalid and says that every tape has a track where you can see what device was used to record it, etc. The video technology explanation originates from the original, Ringu, with the plot of The Ring changed to make it more applicable to average Americans. But a VHS tape does not have a special track for timecode. It is possible to lay a timecode onto the tape in either an analogue form via a special audio channel, or as digital information on lines 16 and 18 of the vertical interval. But this 'timecode' is only used for professional video editing. A standard VCR, like the one they were playing the tape on, does not use this, and therefore makes Noah's explanation a minute of utter nonsense.
Factual error: The bandages for Freddie's stab wounds are on top of his shirt. If he were really stabbed severely three times on the shoulder, the paramedics would have at least make him take off his shirt to better dress the wound. Freddie didn't even take off his jacket!
Factual error: Many shots of the submarine in drydock show Halifax, Nova Scotia's MacKay and MacDonald bridges in the background.
Factual error: The rifles the British soldiers carried in the film were Lee Enfield rifle No. 4's, these did not go into production until WW2. They should have been using an earlier version of the Lee Enfield rifle.
Factual error: When Sam Jackson removes the lug nuts from Ben Affleck's Mercedes, Ben's character continues to drive before the wheel comes off. All Mercedes models use wheel lug bolts and once removed, the wheel immediately falls of the hub. (01:00:15)
Factual error: When the donor is wheeled in for surgery to harvest her organs there are no signs of life support, no tubes, no IV, not resporator. A donor must be kept "alive" by life support or the organs will die.