Everything Everywhere All At Once

Too much is more than enough.

Well, it’s Academy Awards season and you know what that means. Time to catch up on a bucket full of movies you’ve never heard of so you can be in the know when the major awards show are finally given out, ‘round about midnight on Sunday, March 12, starting at 8:00 PM EST (God’s time zone).

And speaking of buckets, a “pointless, swirling bucket of bullshit,” to quote a line from Everything Everywhere All At Once, is how I would describe this particular picture that I had the extreme unease of experiencing the other night at a special screening for SAG (Screen Actors Guild) members, who are also catching up on a whole lotta viewing and streaming for their own awards gratuitous gala on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once (EEAAO henseforth for short) is intended to be a hilarious and bighearted sci-fi action adventure about an exhausted Chinese American woman (Michelle Yeoh) who can’t seem to finish her taxes.

And that’s pretty much what EEAAO is for the first fifteen minutes, until it takes a Matrix like trip into several other dimensions and story lines and for the next two hours of it’s like being stuck on a roller coaster that won’t stop or a really speedy acid trip, depending on your life’s experiences.

Though the special effects and editing are extraordinary and the fact that it was filmed on a minuscule (by Hollywood standards) $14 million budget in only 38 days is an achievement an itself, the filmmakers intentions would have been better served to spend more time paring down the story line and whiplash inducing pacing so that the audience might actually be able to comprehend a sliver of what’s going on. And anyone who did or does see it claims to have kept up is putting you on.

There are a whole lot of Hong Kong cinema inspired fight scenes, jumping between various universes and a full meal deal of family relationships being played out. But that’s about all I can tell you other that the acting was very good too. Especially the aforementioned Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn, the family matriarch thrust into saving various universes in the middle of a tax audit and Ke Huy Quan as Waymond, her slightly goofy husband in our universe and hero of an existential revolutions in another. Stephanie Hsu also stand out as their gay daughter Joy who is trying to bring the family up to woke-speed and James Hong as grandpa Gong Gong, who isn’t having any of this and just wants breakfast. Jamie Lee Curtis is also on hand (occasionally with hot dog like fingers) and adds some comic and cosmic relief as Deidre the IRS agent assigned to Evelyn’s case.

So a whole lot happens and if you don’t like one of EEAAO’s story-line maybe you’ll enjoy another. Think of it as a cinematic pu pu platter. But to this reviewer, it’s just plain pu.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the trailer and decide for yourself if EEAAO is worth the price of admission. Just don’t forget your neck brace and epilepsy medication.

Thanks a trillion for reading. Please check out my Movie Reviews list including Knock At The Cabin, M3GAN, and Babylon and a film festival’s worth of other big screen hits and misses.

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Summarize

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Too much is more than enough.