Factual error: In the English DVD subtitles, during the first commercial at the beginning of the movie, the announcer has a line that reads in the subtitles, "They're doing they're part." The second "they're" should be a possessive "their", not a contraction. (00:00:45)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Rico is getting ready to go to the end of school party, he puts on his black jacket and for a brief moment, we can see the collar is turned up at the back. During the following conversation with his parents he never adjusts his collar, yet when he turns his back, the collar is neatly in place. (00:12:35)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Rico is first in boot camp and Dizz says she is being transferred to the unit, she gets ready to fight the drill sergeant. She drops her papers, her jacket, and her bag. It cuts away for a few seconds, then goes back to the drill sergeant and Dizz in fighting stance. The piece of paper is farther back than before, this can be overlooked because of wind, perhaps. But the jacket and bag are both gone. (00:25:55)
Revealing mistake: When they are learning how to throw knives, the guy gets one thrown through his hand. If you watch this carefully, blood starts coming out of his hand before the knife hits. (00:28:45)
Continuity mistake: Rico is running up the ramp to capture the red flag and drops his gun; it lands with the strap towards the top of the ramp. In the subsequent wide shot, the strap is towards the bottom of the ramp. (00:37:15)
Other mistake: When the large dropships are releasing the smaller craft with the ground troops on board, the large ships are in orbit around planet B, but there seem to be two different types of physics at play - when the small ships are released, instead of using thrusters to push away from the large ship and begin descent into the atmosphere they are already using thrusters to slow the speed of the descent, even though they are still in orbit. (00:59:15)
Continuity mistake: In the first battle with the Roughnecks, Rico, Diz, Ace, and the other guy are confronted by a bug and they shoot at it. If you look at where they are aiming they are shooting above it, but the bullets hit it in the middle. (01:14:20)
Continuity mistake: In the first mission with the roughnecks Rico defeats the acid spraying tanker bug but when he's thrown from it and lands on his back his helmet chin strap breaks free and lands behind him. Next scene it's back on. (01:17:35)
Audio problem: When the troops are lined up on the fort's wall near the end preparing for the waves of bugs, Lt. Rasczak is walking at a fast pace behind them and shouts something before aiming his gun. Before he aims his gun, he is seen shouting the same thing as he walks past them, but there's no sound coming out of his mouth. (01:29:25)
Continuity mistake: At the scene where they get trapped at the fortress, you can see they are not shooting in the direction of the bugs. (01:31:25)
Visible crew/equipment: When Rasczak tells everybody to fall back into the compound and "hold what they've got", there is a shot of one of the bugs being killed and landing on some silver containers, knocking them over. The wires used to pull the containers over are visible. (01:32:35)
Continuity mistake: As the Roger Young is breaking up, the ship's captain is running from the bridge and falls down with the large door descending and striking her midriff. As it hits, she spews blood from her mouth against the side of the door in a arching/sweeping motion. When Carmen returns to help free her, the blood is not displayed in the same pattern, more concentrated to one area as opposed to swept. (01:44:10)
Other mistake: When escaping from the Roger Young, Carmen manages to pilot the escape pod through a debris field, re-enter the atmosphere, bounce off an outcrop of rock, through a rock wall, and bounce off another wall,all without wearing a seatbelt and managing to stay seated. (01:45:20 - 01:47:00)
Continuity mistake: Toward the end, Carmen Ibanez gets stabbed through the shoulder when she is brought before the big master alien thing. If you were to sustain such an injury, there would be so much swelling, not to mention just destroyed tissue, that you wouldn't be able to move that arm for weeks. Yet a few minutes later, she is seen hefting around a very large assault rifle, and seems to have no difficulty. I guess it's a pretty standard action movie "heroes can temporarily ignore injury in order to save the day" kind of oversight, but it just seems exaggerated in this case, considering how severe the shoulder trauma looked. (01:48:15 - 01:53:40)
Other mistake: Just after Rico and Ace rescue Carmen, the other guy has hold of the nuke, which explodes. Watch when the rocks collapse behind the three characters, you can see a nice square block lower from the ceiling, almost like a door being lowered. The crew could perhaps have made it look a little more realistic. (01:55:00)
Visible crew/equipment: When they capture the brain bug, just before Carl says "It was a man called Zim [who captured the bug]", you can see a microphone antenna shadow is visible on his back. The shadow of the camera on his shoulder can also be seen in the fullscreen DVD edition. (01:57:35)
Continuity mistake: When Rico is defending the fort, he takes off his helmet to make a radio call and his hair is all weird. However, before placing the helmet back on, he is seen again with perfect hair.
Factual error: Rico lives in Buenos Aires, which has no hills within a couple of hundred miles. The city shown in the film has hills.
Other mistake: During the live fire assault training, Pvt. Breckenridge has trouble with his helmet, and Squad Leader Rico removes the helmet to inspect it. A third private stumbles and falls nearby, and as she hits the ground her weapon discharges once. The camera immediately cuts to another angle, and the woman is still falling, hitting the ground again. Her weapon discharges several automatic rounds this time, swinging wildly from left to right. She is thus firing from ground level, pointing up at Breckenridge and Rico, who are kneeling only about 8 feet away. The automatic gunfire at that range should have struck both Rico and Breckenridge. As an aside, Breckenridge is shot in the head, and Rico is consequently disciplined for allowing Breckenridge to remove his helmet and getting him killed. However, Breckenridge was shot from below, in his right eye, blowing off the top of his head on the left side. Even if he was wearing it, the helmet would never have saved Breckenridge from a gunshot to his eye.
Visible crew/equipment: In the scene towards the end, in the cavern containing the brain bug, there's a pyrotechnic set-piece of a massive quantity of ammo being used up. This was filmed from a number of angles, and in one shot, looking down across the cavern there is a camera man and an assistant visible in the mouth of one of the tunnels leading in. I don't know if this is corrected in the DVD release, but it was certainly there in the UK theatrical version.
Chosen answer: They do use nukes (to clear out bug caves) and fuel-air bombs (like they do before landing troops). It's possible biological and chemical weapons don't work on the bugs because of their physiology. Only nukes and Thermobaric weapons work.
lionhead