Right now, there are multiple versions of you spanning across an infinite number of universes, each exhibiting the results of an infinite number of outcomes.
There’s one where you decided to eat that snack you turned down; one where you ended up playing Thor instead of Chris Hemsworth; and one where everyone has sausages for fingers.
In this universe, thankfully, we have the ability to see the mindboggling action/sci-fi film ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’.
The film is the latest from filmmakers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, best known as the directing duo Daniels. Audiences will likely be familiar with the pair through their debut feature film ‘Swiss Army Man’, the one starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse ridden like a jet ski by Paul Dano. While that film had one fantastic joke stretched incredibly thin, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ sees the Daniels opt for a deluge of nutty jokes across a hyperactive nearly-two-and-a-half hours.
Hong Kong star Michelle Yeoh takes the lead as Evelyn Wang, a Chinese-American mother and wife running a laundromat. As they make their way to a tax auditing appointment, Evelyn’s husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) suddenly changes personality and informs her of a war across the multiverse and she has been recruited as a last hope.
Rather than have these variants interact with each other as Marvel Studios productions have recently begun delving in, the characters in this film are able to adopt the abilities of their alternate selves – or sometimes be taken over by their variants from a particular universe that has mastered multiverse travel.
Much like most pop culture involving time travel, multiple dimensions, and whatever theoretical physics Stephen Hawking devoted his life to, it’s complicated, but it’s a premise that allows the Daniels’ imaginations to run wild, and at a high rate of hilarity. Glimpses of different multiverses are shown, from one that heavily references the films of Wong Kar-wai to one where everyone has literal sausages for fingers. Even a malapropism involving an animated Disney film pays off with a hilarious depiction of a universe where it is real.
The hilarious multiverse madness also extends to some excellent fight sequences throughout. Michelle Yeoh has long been an excellent martial artist, and her dominance continues. But Yeoh’s mastery doesn’t hold the Daniels back from injecting their warped humour into proceedings, peaking with a wildly funny fight scene so explicit even they had to pixelate some of it.
As said, the Daniels throw in a lot, and sometimes its hyperactivity bloats the film. The flashing images, fast editing, and high-energy fights can be overstimulating, leading to some important exposition being buried beneath it all. But the film manages to slow down at points to expose some real heart beneath the adrenalin.
The cast show a fantastic chemistry in these scenes of family bonding and squabbling, especially from Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn’s husband, Waymond. Quan will be best known to audiences as the child actor in '80s blockbusters ‘The Goonies’ and ‘Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom’, but retired for decades due to the lack of opportunities for Asian-American actors. ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ marks his return to acting, and it’s a heart-warming performance that shows the talent audiences have been deprived of due to Hollywood racism.
Ultimately, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is a chaotic film. But beneath the warped humour, frenetic pacing, difficult science, and high-intensity action, there is a message that within the exhausting fast pace of modern life where distractions abound, it's best to accept your place in it among those who mean the most to you. So, embrace the chaos of ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ and you will be rewarded with one of the most delightfully entertaining films of the year.
★★★★☆
‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is in cinemas 14 April.
