Factual error: When Fat Albert and Reggie are racing around the school track, there are palm trees visible over Fat Albert's right shoulder in the background. The problem with that is the movie supposedly takes place in Philadelphia, PA.
Factual error: A key plot point hinges on the Iraqi fellow believing he has shot someone but caused no harm. A brief shot of the bullets he has loaded his revolver with reveals that they are black powder blanks. Such blanks produce large clouds of white smoke when fired (indeed, they are used specifically to produce that effect in movies), but the shooting scene shows no smoke at all.
Factual error: Near the end of the movie, Raul is telling the hunter to not kill the tigers. Throughout the scene, you can hear a bird call. The bird is a grebe. Grebes do not live in the jungle- they are only found near large bodies of water.
Factual error: A headline from the Pantagraph (an Illinois newspaper) dated 19 December 2001, is shown in big letters to read, "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election." In fact, no edition of the Pentagraph has ever featured an article that claimed this. The only time those words appeared in that newspaper was in small print over a letter to the editor dated 5 December 2001.
Factual error: Whenever you see a license plate, it says "Puerto Rico, Isla Del Encanto" (where the film was shot). The movie takes place in Cuba.
Factual error: Sharks don't float when they're dead, they sink. While it did initially sink after being thrown out of the "casket", when the shot changes to Don Lino and Lenny consoling one another, you see him float back up. (00:33:50)
Factual error: Morgan says that french fries are one of the seven items on McDonalds menu that doesn't contain sugar. French fries, in fact, do contain dextrose - a form of sugar. This is mentioned on DVD commentary.
Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, the narrator states that the lowest possible SAT score is 500. In reality, the lowest score at the time of filming was 400 (200 on each section).
Factual error: In the scene where they all meet up for Christmas dinner, later they drive to the park and there are green leaves on the trees.
Factual error: During the mess hall fight between the Sergeant and Horton, the Sergeant cuts the private's head with a cleaver and raises it "to show us". Horton's head is heard breathing and the breathing sounds react to the bug coming out of the head's mouth. I know the parasite bug makes the host's body quite resilient, but wouldn't the head still needs lungs to produce breathing sounds of that kind?
Factual error: Early in the movie, you see Largeman arrive at work and the hose from the gas station is still hanging out of the gas tank. The hose wouldn't have been frayed like it was shown. All pumps, at least in the U.S., have a breakaway point that allows the hose to break cleanly and reseal.
Factual error: When the pilots are over the Gulf of Mexico right before the oil rig is destroyed, one of them reports that the surface pressure is 93 millibars. That's the wrong order of magnitude for a surface pressure reading. Standard atmospheric pressure is 1000 millibars, or 1 bar. During the very worst hurricanes, surface pressure can drop slightly below 900 millibars. So the pressure reading here probably should have been 930 millibars, not 93.
Factual error: After Samuel shoots himself he is lying on the floor next to the Glock he used. The slide is locked back even though he had only one round and no empty magazine in the gun. The slide will not lock back in this configuration.
Factual error: It is said Maggie can't breathe on her own after her injury. If this was the case she wouldn't be able to speak, since she can't push air out of her lungs to generate sound.
Factual error: This film shows Sellers faking a broken leg in order to get out of playing the pilot in Dr. Strangelove. Sellers fell off a ladder on the set of the film, and director Stanley Kubrick was there to see it happen. He broke his leg and was replaced by Slim Pickens as a result.
Factual error: When the pills are being recovered in the mock police raid, we see, several times, an observer watching through binoculars. We see his eye enlarged, despite our looking the wrong way down the lens.
Factual error: There are many police interactions that would not take place in reality. For example. (1) All officers would be trained in vehicle use. Failure to be able to handle the vehicle would result in termination. He would have been booted from the academy. (2) When an officer is suspended, the badge, ID AND weapon are all removed by the officer in charge. In this case, only the badge was taken. (3) The officer in charge would likely only have the option of offering suspension without pay pending an emergency suspension hearing with a recommendation for termination. She could not fire him on the spot. Also, once officially fired, based on the merits of the inappropriate activities, he could not be taken back, regardless of the good deeds - past, present or future.
Factual error: Near the beginning a Scrabble rack is shown containing tiles with the words "GET A FORD." Scrabble racks are limited to 7 tiles and this is 8. This rack cannot exist in Scrabble.
Suggested correction: Hi. The rack in question was showing an advertisement from the 1950s which featured a Scrabble rack. So, while it is true that GET A ford would not be a legal Scrabble rack...it wasn't from an actual game.
Factual error: When Joseph Sedley presents Becky Sharp with the parrot, he says it is because she loves all things that come from India. The Blue and Gold Macaw, however, is native to South America. (The director's commentary makes it clear that she is aware of this. (She could hardly not be, coming from India.) It was a bit of "poetic license.")
Factual error: (SPOILER ALERT) Aviva is supposed to have had a hysterectomy done on her secretly when she went in to have an abortion. She is shown waking up in the clinic, and her parents elect not to tell her, and as the movie progresses we see that she never finds out. But there are several reasons why this is impossible: 1) A hysterectomy is major surgery - the little storefront clinic Aviva is in would never have been able to perform it. She would have been transfered to a hospital. 2) Similarly, the recovery period for a hysterectomy is weeks long - Aviva would have been hospitalized for weeks, and there's no way she would not have noticed the pain she was in, or the surgical scar, or the fact that she was in a hospital. Yet in the movie she is shown walking out of the clinic the same day. 3) Even if you discount the first two reasons, Aviva would have noticed in the weeks and months afterwards that she was not getting her period, and therefore was incapable of getting pregnant. Yet we see her gamely trying to get pregnant with the trucker guy.