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 and his friends are real-time videos of live, 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 - current technology - 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: Tom Hanks is driving his car over a bridge in downtown Chicago in 1931. In the background is the elevated train structure. An aluminum bodied train passes on the trestel in the background. This aluminum bodied train is of 1980's contruction. In the 1930's the train cars were of wood construction and painted brown. They were still in service in the 1950's.
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: On the plane, while being escorted by FBI agents, Frank Jr sees New York's LaGuardia Airport and says, "There it is, LaGuardia Airport, runway 44." A runway numbered 44 is impossible. No runway can be numbered over 36 because there are 360 degrees in a circle. (01:58:25)
Factual error: In a scene set in 1862 or 1863 Bill the Butcher says: 'An Irishman will do for a nickel what a ****** will do for a dime or a white man for a quarter'. The first nickel 5 cent piece was coined in 1866. At the time of the scene the 5 cent coin was a small silver coin called a half-dime. (01:10:00)
Factual error: In the scene where Roxie is placed in the "paddy wagon" to be taken to Cook County Jail, the prosecutor refers to himself as District Attorney Harrison. However, the court system in Illinois doesn't have district attorneys; rather, they have state's attorneys. The original play by Maureen Watkins correctly calls him a state's attorney.
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.
Factual error: The whole movie shows methamphetamine constricting their pupils. Methamphetamine is a central nervous system stimulant which dilates the pupils - the exact opposite of what is shown.
Factual error: Otisville Prison was not in the direction Monty's father was driving. He said he would take the Henry Hudson Parkway north and later continue on the Taconic Parkway. The Taconic runs due north toward Massachusetts on the east side of the Hudson River. Otisville is 30 miles west of the Hudson.
Factual error: Chuck and Penny are seen drinking Rolling Rock beer in clear glass bottles. But Rolling Rock beer has always come in green glass bottles.
Factual error: Moore states when talking about Canada that "13% of the country is non-white, so the Canadians are pretty much like us". He uses that figure while trying to figure why the deaths caused with guns is so high in the US compared to other countries. Problem is the US, as of the last census (2000), was nearly 25% "Non-White". Now 13 and 25 percent don't seem that far away but not only is the US percentage almost double Canada's "non-White" population, but that 25% equates to over 70 million people in the US - over two times the entire population of Canada (which as of their last census was 32 million).
Factual error: The issue of "Guideposts" shown by Crane's interviewers is from the early '90s.
Factual error: The boardwalk is twice as wide as the real Long Beach boardwalk. The ramps on the real Long Beach boardwalk run parallel to the boardwalk. The movie's boardwalk ramps run perpendicular to the boardwalk.
Factual error: When the engine is shut down in the plane, the altimeter is shown spinning down wildly, indicating that the plane is diving at a speed of over 2000 feet per second, which is approximately 1200 miles per hour. Assuming that the plane wouldn't disintegrate at that speed (which it would), judging from the altitude at which the engine was cut, it would have taken less than 3 seconds for the plane to hit the ground.
Factual error: When Tom Green says he is going to beat the bejesus out of the guy on the phone and slams the phone down several times you can hear a bell ring inside the phone; that type of phone doesn't use a bell when it rings.
Factual error: At the end of the movie, when Burke faces Sheldon, he tells him "one of the secrets about owning a gun: You have to cock it." But since Sheldon's weapon was a double-action revolver he doesn't have to cock it. He could just pull the trigger.
Factual error: The registration letters on the cars are too new for 1969.
Factual error: The way the statue is handled in the movie is unrealistic. They say in the movie that the statue is thousands of years old and has to be kept at 60 degrees to stop the decomposition from getting worse. If it was as old as they say it is, the way the handle it, without gloves or any special protection, it would crumble in their hands. You can't handle a 3000 or more year old statue that small and expect it not to break.