Everything Everywhere All at Once

For some people the film of the year, for others an insufferable piece of shit, and for me somewhere in between. It's definitely one of the most original and weird films of recent years, but bizarre and wacky isn't necessarily great. The story is, in one sentence, about a woman who files her taxes while having to save the world through parallel universes. The plot itself is by no means revelatory or sophisticated, I found the acting below average (the Chinese speaking English brought the whole film down a level, the whole acting came off as awkward), the action is quite low and it's not my style. I used to dig Jackie Chan when I was 13, but by the time of The Raid and The Night Comes for Us, this kung fu style, though obviously self-parodying, is a bit boring. The whole world has no set rules, almost nothing makes sense and it's chaos, yes there's a lot of creative invention and a lot of interesting ideas, but at what cost huh? Even beyond the point of awkwardness, cringefest. The film is an homage to Asia, but it mostly takes from it what I like the least: obscure and bizarre madness from Japanese culture and parodies of 80s kung fu and Hong-Kong. It's a shame the film wasn't R-rated, maybe the gore would have given it more aesthetic cachet, but for me it's sadly unsatisfying and the exorbitant footage doesn't add much to it. I didn't even find it funny except for a couple of minor moments (the rock scene) and the light moments that I found entertaining were quite few, certainly less than I expected. The final fight with the quick change of locations was impressive though, and the playful direction pulls it up to at least a better average for me. I won't give more than that, certainly not sober. However, I'm quite surprised at the positive reception, for how borderline it is in places to the viewer's common taste. Story 3/5. Action 3/5, Humour 3/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 2/5. (05/19/2022)

The first two thirds are an example of first-class screenwriting, where unpredictable moments are strung together like on a treadmill and the rolling train of invention cannot be slowed down. I should be rightly impressed by Tohlle, unfortunately the Daniels as engineers on coke get so carried away that towards the end it becomes a poorly controlled propulsion vehicle that derails and smashes everyone in the wagon. It's a shame, because there's a whole sequence of scenes and situations that you've never seen in a movie before, and that's valuable. (01/29/2023)

That's how you put together a rock, a Ratatouille, and the long arm of the tax authority, and you get something between Don’t Look Back, Rick and Morty and Big Trouble in Little China. By all logic, it should be a disparate hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, allusions to anything, originality at all costs, and stupidity². All this in charge of someone who happened to have a solid budget and an impressive ensemble, but no producer to hold the reins. And that's what it is. However unlikely it may be (or maybe we are happy that it worked in spite of everything), it is, worlds wonder, a cohesive and tightly grasped whole, which is undeserving of only a slightly overblown runtime. Thanks to confident direction, and the aforementioned perfect cast, it handily manages to throw up one bizarre scene after another, as well as wringing out emotions in a brilliantly effective "family members finding their way to themselves and each other" equation throughout. (07/22/2022)

A woman is trying to pay her taxes… An unexpectedly playful take on parallel universes. Unfortunately it’s unnecessarily long and at times unnecessarily self-indulgent in its weirdness at the expense of a fairly standard story. Swiss Army Man held together much better and it was also more fun. Here they should have trimmed in places and add a little in others to create a coherent ride across what could have been. Kwan and Scheinert put so much into it that I felt terribly overwhelmed by the lines. Michelle Yeoh is fantastic in all her versions and enjoys every one of them. Ke Huy Quan seized the opportunity to play a role tailor-made for Jackie Chan and got the most out of it. I need a few more viewings to take it all in, but for the first time, so far, excellent entertainment that lacks something short of perfection. It’s like a doughnut without the dusting. (01/29/2023)

The creative duo DANIELS were behind the mega-wonderful, extremely interesting, and entertaining movie Swiss Army Man. They raised the middle finger to the hollowed-out Marvel movies this year with their new movie, showing that even with a budget ten times smaller, it is still possible to create a movie with bigger and better cinematic magic and play around with the concept of multiverses. It is a sprawling spectacle, and it is also all, as they say, slightly all over the place so that you might feel quite overwhelmed afterward, and on first viewing, you perhaps are not going to be able even to catch all the details DANIELS put into it. I hoped I would have been more moved and touched by the conclusion, which did not quite happen. However, I have to highlight a really interesting and entertaining movie. I must also say that I have probably never seen a stronger acting comeback than the performance here by Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)! What a dude! (05/19/2022)