Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

I heard so many intriguing and contradictory things on social media for so long about this one that I finally broke down and paid the $6 for a look. A running time over two hours and certainly the title already speak to heady ambitions. A frantic pace creates the context for a premise centering unfathomable multitudes of multiverses (every decision point in every person’s life creates a new one) and that alone bears up to the hype, more or less. It’s dizzying to contemplate and much of the editing emphasizes dizzying, with flashing cuts so fast at some points I’m surprised there weren’t seizure warnings. The durable badass Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Police Story 3: Supercop) admirably, as always, carries much of the load here, amply supported by a cast of feel-good hey-that-guys: Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis, all having a ball. Note that “having a ball” does not preclude rampant scenery-chewing but this movie is so full of excess that even overacting can represent something of a break from the frenzy. My favorite parts were the fights, as among other things this is a loving parody of Hong Kong action pictures from the ‘80s and ‘90s. The martial arts come by the barrel loads, with many flavors on display from Bruce Lee kung fu forward, plus also a few instances of American-style WWE mayhem, Matrix-style turns, and even one or two Street Fighter combats. Of the opinions I saw, I’d say a bare majority perhaps was generally over the moon about EEAAO as pure adrenalized entertainment. The complainers mostly seemed to be bothered by the assault, which indeed is so relentless that eventually it verged very slightly on monotony for me. There’s a lot of high-flying concept to absorb with the bewildering multiverse setup, but it’s reasonably lucid and further fortified with TV-style family dramas embedded deep in the action. The essential narrative conflicts in this nonstop welter are between Evelyn (Yeoh) and her husband, her father, and her daughter. It’s crazy stuff but there’s plenty of room for family feels. I think that puts it more middlebrow than anything else but I also suspect EEAAO may be one someone could acquire and get in the habit of looking at often.