Everything Everywhere All at Once

Unfortunately for me, this highly anticipated film, which I was looking forward to as a potential movie of the year, crossed the line between quirky oddity full of playful ideas and disorganized mess where nothing matters, and not only once. While it always sort of gets back on the track and I was able to follow and enjoy it, I'm used to putting more focused films on a five-star pedestal, films where I can see the filmmakers have things firmly in their hands, and I simply didn't get that impression with Everything Everywhere All at Once, and not only because the finale completely missed me emotionally. The plot gradually gets into such a whirlwind, such a geyser of unlimited imagination, that it's really hard to find any fixed point – not necessarily "logical". Oh, and some of the jokes are trying so hard that it felt embarrassing a few times. I appreciate playfulness and originality, but I would have slowed down a gear or two. (19/05/2022)

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. (29/01/2023)

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. (19/05/2022)

The title doesn't lie. But I was more stunned than dazzled by everything that was happening everywhere and all at once, and I didn't buy on it, even at the end, when it turned out that it made sense and they obviously knew what they were doing and why. If they had only done it for maybe an hour and a half, it would have been more digestible for me. I enjoyed it, Michelle Yeoh is amazing, and the film  straddles genres in a beautiful way, as if was directed and written by Bong Joon-ho... But it's far from him. (22/02/2024)

What happens when you mix some of Marvel's stinking failed comic book movies with a bit of The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, an attempt at a revolutionary depiction of a story about family values (not) fulfilling their potential and totally WTF (read modern) pop culture moments? An absolutely frenetic travesty, where nobody knows what will happen in five minutes, but at the same time nobody really cares. (09/03/2023)