credit: Everything Everywhere All at Once
A lot of people have felt their stress levels hit the roof and keep climbing when life gets to be a bit too much to handle, but this movie goes above and beyond as Michelle Yeoh and her cast members put in the work to show how Evelyn Quan Wang not only handles her business but also how she breaks through barriers to set her many lives right. The premise of this movie is all kinds of insane since from the moment that the audience gets to meet Evelyn, they can see that she’s an overworked individual with a lackluster life that is ready for a way out and is likely thinking of how her life could have turned out had she made different choices. The only problem here is that with every choice she makes, a new universe is created that is similar to the one she finds herself in but is just different enough that it becomes something unique to itself. In some universes, she’s a star. In others, she’s dead, and then in some, she has hotdog fingers. This movie doesn’t pull that many punches when it comes to how wild, and crazy the ideas get, especially when showing that the entire system can come crashing down if Evelyn’s daughter Joy is allowed to bring about the end.
credit: Everything Everywhere All at Once
It does feel that someone might have been tossing darts at an idea board with this movie.
Thankfully that’s not a criticism. It’s just an observation, given that this movie is rather crazy in how it jumps one way and then another. The explanation of this that each different Evelyn has their own skill set that can be shared between the rest of them is kind of interesting, but it makes sense that such a practice would create massive issues. There mere thought of being able to jump from one universe to another is troubling enough since it could cause a lot of problems that might be nearly impossible to solve, but simply borrowing the skills that one version of a person has in order to bolster one’s own skill set is intriguing, but also capable of creating many bigger problems that might not be seen to take effect right away.
There are moments of lucidity when this movie makes sense, but they feel more like anchor points to keep the audience grounded.
It’s almost as though the director felt the need to back off now and then to remind the audience that the movie was, in fact taking place in one universe and not many at the same second, even if that was the general idea given the premise. But the nuttiness that this movie works with is enticing since it draws a person in, especially if they happen to be of the mind that such a nutty movie is their desired viewing material in the first place. Hey, some folks enjoy movies that don’t bend to the traditional formula that many features follow from start to finish. While this movie doesn’t stretch entirely out of those boundaries, it does push beyond them in a way that’s made to give the audience a look into something that’s well beyond the norm for many movies. Whether people can follow the story or not is kind of up to them.
credit: Everything Everywhere All at Once
The story is chaotic but fun.
Michelle Yeoh is usually a lot of fun to watch, as is James Hong. The appearance of Key Hu Quan is a pleasant surprise since it’s been quite a while since he’s been in anything worthy of note, such as this movie, and he’s been a fan favorite for so long thanks to his stint as Short Round, Data, and even Kim in Encino Man that it was a treat to see him again in a much more substantial role that makes him stand out. And yes, it was highly entertaining to watch him kick the snot of a group of people with a fanny pack since it was random enough that it came off as awesome.
The ending feels adequate. That’s about the best way to put it.
The fact is that this movie comes down to a mother and daughter and how their relationship is about to make or break the many universes that depend upon the stability of the Alphaverse is kind of ‘meh’, but it’s not horrible. There is a lot to be said about how hard parents push their children to make good choices in their life, and it’s easy to see how this would upset a lot of kids to the point that they might become neurotic or even psychotic simply because they don’t want to take the pressure any longer. But to think that it might affect the multiverse, yikes.
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