When an interdimensional rupture unravels reality, an unlikely hero (Yeoh) must channel her newfound powers to fight bizarre and bewildering dangers from the multiverse as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
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Academy Awards and crazy buzz about a multiverse movie? After the negative reviews concerning the recent Marvel multiverse sage, I didn’t think that was possible. But a little movie from A24, Everything Everywhere All at Once, managed to do just that. I just knew I had to check it out, so when I ran across it on streaming, I jumped at the chance. Would it be worth all the hype, or was the academy just going for it because it had some subtitled sequences?
Michelle Yeoh has made a career of continuing to surprise critics with her acting skills. Even way back with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she earned rave reviews, and yet critics still seem surprised when they like here performances even now. Well, with Everything Everywhere All at Once, she once again shines. As the protagonist of the film, she creates a bond with the audience, even amongst the craziness of the story, and viewers will be drawn in almost in spite of themselves – and that’s thanks to her skills.
The rest of the cast Is solid as well, with newcomer Stephanie Hsu as her daughter, Ke Huy Quan (Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, all grown up) as the frustrated yet loving husband, Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) playing against her usual type as a frumpy IRS agent and James Wong (Big Trouble in Little China) as her wheelchair-bound father. They, and the rest of the cast, turn in some of the best performances in their careers, keeping the viewer grounded even amongst the chaos.
And there is a lot of chaos in Everything Everywhere All at Once. A frustrated wife and business owner is conscripted by an agent from another universe (who takes over the body of her husband), to stop a force that is destroying the entire multiverse. Apparently there’s a device from his universe that, after being activated by some random action with a small chance of probability (such as purposefully receiving 4 paper cuts), allows the wearer to access their persona in another universe – thus giving them a glimpse into their other life, and allowing them to gain skills from that life. Armed with that – and pretty much clueless otherwise, she starts jumping around universes, acquiring skills to defeat the various foes she encounters.
It’s a super weird premise, and Everything Everywhere All at Once could have easily just been a confusing mess for viewers, but directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known as Daniels, collectively) manage to guide the viewers through the chaos with an adept hand, keeping the viewer locked into the very down-to-earth story at the heart of the film, even while keeping them delighted by the crazy action sequences and special effects that they are being bombarded with.
Normally, subtitle sequences are nothing but a distraction. Viewers become too focused on the words on the screen to keep up with the action. Thankfully, Everything Everywhere All at Once, while having quite a few subtitled scenes, manages to avoid that by switching to English (and thus getting rid of the subtitles) when the action starts getting more intense. It’s the pauses in the action when the subtitles come into play. This is a smart choice, since the words are much more important in these sequences than what the characters are doing, and showing the subtitles naturally draws the viewer to those words – which is exactly what the directors want them to do.
The action sequences are impressive, as while they not only show some solid martial art fights, they also – on occasion – jump between universes during the fights, adding a whole new level of visual entertainment. And yet, that visual spectacle only enhances the fights, leaving the viewers impressed by what they are seeing, rather than lost in the spectacle.
With an interesting sci-fi plot first drawing the viewers in, then the cast delivering some of the best performances of their careers, directors who are adept at keeping the human element at the forefront of a visually chaotic film, and some off-the-wall humor tossed in occasionally for good measure, Everything Everywhere All at Once is so much better than it has any right to be. Too many movies try to toss in too much, leaving the viewer feeling lost and confused rather than impressed, and yet this film, made for a fraction of the budget of those blockbusters, manages to keep the viewer solidly hooked n throughout.
A chaotic multiverse movie with a moving human element that will keep viewers hooked to the end, Everything Everywhere All at Once, if you haven’t already seen it, should be on your watch list. For those who have, it definitely is a movie worth owning, as subsequent viewings may let you pick up on things you probably missed the first time around – and the story is good enough it doesn’t matter if you already know how it ends. It’s how they get there that matters.
