The makers of Swiss Army Man Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (The Daniels) offer much chaotic ebullience to a weirdly engaging science fiction action movie.
Everything Everywhere All At Once takes the dimensional dip with style and off the wall storytelling using a space/time continuum embraced by many a superhero film, the latest being the box office behemoth Spider Man: No Way Home.
Over temporal lines a dark comedy alternating from absurd to profound on a broader scale (for the Daniels) can be a bit draining, through often continuously inspired.
Pleasantries lead quickly too the discouraged wife and mother Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh Crazy Rich Asians) dealing with unhappy husband Raymond (Ke Huy Quan, remembered as a child actor from IndianaJones and the Temple of Doom.) Besides cranky, disapproving by elderly father Gong Gong [nonagenarian James Hong] and sullen adult lesbian daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu).
With a failing Laundromat business, she’s involved with contentious, censorious IRS auditor Deidre (an amusing, fairly unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis of Knives Out) there’s an admonition and recruiting with a headset. To allow an ordinary Evelyn to cross over and inhabit alternate versions that channel elements of earlier cinema with prominent panache.
What is done by a raccoon, with a hot dog, Chapstick or the proverbial shoes doesn’t matter in this audacious venture held together through Yeoh’s veritable emotionality that extends to her co-stars. Flamboyancy is displayed from a fanny pack and outfits as Quan and Hsu offer more heart to their rangy turns, the later appearing in daunting from as the villainous Jobu Tupaki while Curtis is quite notable as the emotive, If sensitive inspector.
A weeping adventure, indeed, Everything Everywhere All At Once likely won’t be everything wonderful or logical in unleashing a maximum output with trailer pacing. Still, from the office claustrophobia to striking martial arts choreography it’s hard not to be inthralled, even touched on the ride with the fighting, even reconciliatory Evelyn that’s arguably wider and more convoluted than much larger-budgeted fare like “the Matrix.”