Everything Everywhere All at Once — A Whacky, Crazy and Incoherent Mess

Following a strangely delayed release in the UK, possibly due to the coincidental release of fellow multiverse film “Doctor Strange”, we finally got “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in cinemas accompanied by some rave reviews. I wasn’t going to miss this one.

The story follows Evelyn, a Chinese woman who owns a laundromat with her husband and is the mother of a typical Gen-Z child. Her biggest worries in life are usually tax related and passing her audit while also impressing her father, until her life turns upside down when the threat of the entire multiverse collapsing is thrust upon her — and she’s told only she can save it.

Let’s get the positives out of the way before we dive into the madness of this film. The performances from our three main characters, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Stephanie Hsu are actually pretty good. While the three of them together provide good comedic effect, it’s when they both interact with Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) individually that they really shine. That’s when the key relationships that the film tries to base it’s events on are really formed.

The film actually starts off in a fun, family drama kind of tone that actually works. It uses this segment to introduce us to the family fairly quickly and get us into the premise without needing to flood us with exposition.

However, it all goes haywire very quickly.

All of a sudden, without any warning, the multiverse concept kicks in and the tone totally changes. The film then puts into place it’s own logic of the multiverse which I’ll admit, did take me a while to figure out but it does eventually make sense given the context. While instant comparisons will go towards “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, what this film does not have is the burden of maintaining the rep of an almost flawless studio or franchise, nor does it have source material to stay loyal to.

To its credit, the film capitalises on this big time and has a lot of fun with it. From the whacky, over the top action sequences to the mind bending visual effects, it’s all of a sudden a trippy experience leaving you startled in every scene. There’s lots of laughs too — whether out of actual funny moments or even out of sheer confusion as to what’s going on. In these elements, the confusion actually fits and works, but it carries on a bit too long.

I’m sure that I am in a small minority here having seen all the rave reviews for the film, but in my opinion the film just totally spirals into chaos — and not the good kind. It goes from the whacky multiversal action into emotionally heavy sequences and blends the two into a strange plot point that I can’t get into without entering spoiler territory. To cut a long story short, it all gets a bit mad, and it just didn’t sit with me nor did it hit home.

That’s not to say it doesn’t work at all. It does have some good, beautiful moments and dialogue that develop the relationships from earlier in the fuilm but a bit like the mental state of our protagonist, it’s broken and fragmented and it’s unfortunately only happens in moments.

While the film takes a currently popular topic and chooses not to take itself too seriously and decides to have a lot of fun without the burden of reputation or source material loyalty, what we end up getting is a whacky, confusing and incoherent mess. There’s fun to be had, but only if you can get your head around what’s going on — or maybe only if you try not to.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is out now in cinemas only.

Rating: 4/10