Not just "the girl" — his whole life, his comrades, his hope of the future, after having lost his best friend already (so far as he knows.) It's very sad and having him wake up in a modern world that he's determined to confront and cope with, when they're trying to coddle him and shelter him and break it to him gently…

What's edgier than hundreds of knives? Every knife has an edge! Edginess to the MAXXX!!!

You seem to fail to understand the difference between "fantastic premise" and "plot hole." Here's a copy of Aristotle's Poetics, get to it. (Actually a summary, but it does deal with the DCEU…)

So…you maintain plausible deniability by sending along a whole squad of uniformed soldiers?

Yes. "Actors." Not "vacant-eyed mannequins who somehow have achieved ambulatory status."

Not if you spend more money than you make,to make that money.

But they weren't hot young women in tight underwear!

Also fencing & shooting.

Um, no. I studied dressage for a while, learning it with an old, grumpy trail horse who thought it was foolishness, until he and I figured out together what we were supposed to be doing, and he would be impatient to start our lesson, instead of turning his back on me and stepping on my feet or biting my knees, because…

Because she's a terrible actress and doesn't convey "competent older academic" at all.

23-year old PhD field archaeologist is as believable as teenage surgeon at a hospital…

I think if you regard movie studios, especially huge ones with many divisions like WB, as Machiavellian principalities full of baroque intrigues and court factions all struggling for wealth and glory, a lot of the decisions make more sense.

You mean 20 army dudes you need to kill like those FBI guys because this wasn't supposed to happen. Plausible deniability is out the window if hearings are happening!

Ooh, I know why 4! It's a bit of a swipe at Guillermo del Toro, who wanted to do Justice League Dark and was on it for a bit before they took it away for reasons unspecified (possibly having something to do with longstanding David Goyer conflicts going back to Blade 2/3) and who ALWAYS has Tarot imagery and poses…

Also she would have had to kill off all the soldiers sent along to babysit the Squad — and Flagg is okay with this!

Plus, if it's plausible deniability you're after, and the Squad is sooo secret that all those FBI agents have to be killed — instead of having their credit rating extended, so to speak — then all those soldiers are going to have to be killed too, afterwards, because they're even more likely to blab over some beers or…

If the female character in question has always been shown to be vastly more competent than the male characters surrounding her, until this depiction, yes. (Also taking into account that all the other women in it are incompetent…)

Also, in what world is it okay for archaeologists to go soloing in caves? Teamwork and safety are as much an integral part of archaeology as they are of biology — and in fact, this may be the only archeology-based-fantasy-horror movie that makes Prometheus look like a hard, realistic depiction of science best…

Also, she is supposed to be an experienced professional at a point in a career that takes a lot more than four years to accomplish, so having her played by someone barely old enough to have gotten her undergraduate degree is like having Doogie Houser not be an absurdist comedy.

There's even a name for it — "The Idiot Ball" as the plot device that bad authors give their characters in order to force the events they want to happen on screen, just as "on rails" is used of bad GMs who won't let events unfold organically with their group because they too are too devoted to their gimmicks.