WHAT IN THE WORLD DID I JUST WATCH?
I guess I’m on an island when I say this, “But this movie just didn’t work for me.” In fact, this movie didn’t work for my mom, or my aunt, who both dozed off a few times. Before I get into the heart of the review, let me say that this movie isn’t for kids. It does include a few sexual fighting scenes that aren’t appropriate for the little ones. This review does contain major spoilers. So, you’ve been warned!
If you haven’t seen this movie and wanna be surprised, stop reading – NOW!
Let me quote some critics:
“Pure movie magic.”
“Refreshingly vibrant and unique, a true force of film making?” (by the way, filmmaking is one word)
“The best movie I’ve seen so far in 2022; I highly doubt I’ll see anything better, more original or creative, intensely funny and exciting. Highly recommend!”
Let’s get real.
This movie is one of the worst movies of 2022, and I have a feeling the reason why the critics loved it so much, is because the cast and production team were composed mostly of Asians. The movie is definitely not “Movie Magic.”
DIRECTION
Everything Everywhere was written and directed by both Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the creative team behind the Swiss Army Man, which is a hilarious movie that I actually love. Before directing Everything Everywhere, Dan Kwan directed the episode, Grandma and Chill, from the hit series, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, and did a great job. Both directors are not just good at their craft, they’re great. But I have a feeling they over-throttled their brains a bit too much, and missed the mark. That can happen in the creative world.
The duo started pre-production on this film in 2010, and was highly discouraged in 2018 when the animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out. They stated ” [it was] a little upsetting because we were like, ‘Oh shit, everyone’s going to beat us to this thing we’ve been working on.” The truth is that Spider-Man’s multiverse wasn’t created in 2018, but actually in 2014 as a comic series called the Spider-Verse. And parallel dimensions were not anything new. Albert Einstein set the groundwork for the String Theory, and Hugh Everett created the theory of the parallel universe in the 1950s. So if I’m being nit-picky, Kwan and Schienert were extremely late to the parallel dimension bandwagon.
And consequently, I believe because the director-writer-duo wanted to be so different from what was out there: Spider-Man, the MCU, Dr. Strange; that they overcomplicated their creativity, and created a pretty big hot mess.
The storyline of this movie is extremely simple and boring. It’s about a middle-aged woman, Evelyn Wang, who owns a laundromat with her husband, who struggles to keep her family together, while undergoing an IRS audit. Meanwhile, in a parallel dimension, her daughter who clearly is suffering from identity issues, has become an all-powerful evil genius, and wants to destroy all universes by sucking them into a huge bagel, that doubles as a black hole – yes, you read that right. The only way out of this is for Evelyn to mend her broken relationship with her daughter. And that requires her to go on a confusing journey that includes her turning into a rock, a pinata, a movie action star, and a lesbian with hot dog fingers who is in love with her IRS auditor. Evelyn and her daughter, by the way, are only the only humans in the entire universe that can be everyone, everywhere, at all times – like the title. My verdict. This isn’t movie magic, this is a ludicrous argument for a movie.
But, given the right direction, it could work. Unfortunately, the direction was as insane as the premise. At one point in the movie, when Evelyn is running up the stairs to save her daughter, it felt like an eternity to see that scene to the end, because Evelyn kept flashing to different universes, over and over again, like a bad movie edit. Cuts were so harsh, over accelerated, that my brain actually felt tired after every scene. If the movie paced itself better, and slowed down a bit after the 1st act, then it could have been a lot better.
One of the main responsibilities of a director is to communicate efficiently. And they missed the mark by a parsec (3.258 light-years). The straightest distance between an argument for a story, and an answer, is a straight line. In other words, keep it simple.
GRADE: F
THE SCRIPT
I have a lot of problems with this screenplay. Let’s start at the top.
There were extremely funny scenes in this movie, that if they’d exist as stand-alone shorts, would work extremely well. But, that’s not the case here. This script is not sure what it wants to be be. The agenda of the antagonist is dire. Joy Wang, Evelyn’s daughter, wants to destroy all universes, and she’s already killed lots of people, hundreds, maybe millions. This is not a premise for a slapstick comedy, but a tragic superhero movie. And instead of getting served a heroic storyline, we got Saturday Night Live.
To make things worse, there was no sense of any story structure in this movie, even though it was broken into three parts. The 1st Act of Everything Everywhere was good, not great. We got a sense of Evelyn’s life before she was exposed to the multiverse, but we still didn’t know exactly who Evelyn was, and what motivated her (I’ll get more into that later). But after the 1st turning point scene, which was fun, things went downhill from there. Instead of Evelyn turning into some type of superhero we could cheer for, we were dragged through endless comedy bits for an hour, before Evelyn and Joy finally had their tearful loving moment.
Get to the point, story is king, not the funny comedy bits you need to have.
It’s important to note that this movie falls under the category of science-fiction. And here’s the little catch-22 when it comes to this genre. The writer needs to explain their fictional science, in a way to make it believable to the audience. If they don’t, they’ll lose the audience. And, this movie didn’t take the time to explain much. The multi-universe was just an excuse for comedy bits.
GRADE : F
THE CHARACTERS
EVELYN WANG IS A TYPE FOUR “INDIVIDUALIST”
Evelyn Wang co-owns a laundromat with her husband, lives a boring life, and repeats the same steps every single day. Of all the versions of Evelyns in the Universe, the version we are introduced to, is in their own words “absolutely nothing, therefore she had the possibility of being everything.”
To be quite honest, Evelyn Wong’s character is all over the map, so it’s hard to place her on the Enneagram. Evelyn does seem to have the characteristics of a workaholic, and there is an argument to classify her as a Type Three “Achiever” on the Enneagram beacuse of this. But I didn’t see Evelyn working habits as a means to create a winning image to please everyone. She just worked because that’s the bed she created, and she decided to lay in. Also, Evelyn also was not a charismatic personality, or easily likable. Usually, Type Threes are smooth, extremely likable, and love the limelight – think Tony Stark when you picture a Type Three. Could you write Evelyn Wong as a Type Three? Yes. And I honestly think her character would have been a lot more interesting if the writers chose that path. Imagine if Evelyn Wong was sick of her life as the owner of a laundromat, and had a secret side-hustle that gave her some type of anonymous internet fame and wealth, and she favored that life over her family, because it gave her more happiness. And the IRS’ audit revealed this secret life to her family, because the numbers at the end of the year, and write-offs didn’t add up.
But unfortunately, Evelyn Wong was not a Type Three, but a Type Four “Invidualists” searching for her meaning. Yes, once again, another protagonist who is lost, and on an endless journey to discover their place in this world. And by the end of the movie, she literally got her wish, as she was Everything, Everywhere, All at once – sigh. Talk about a Type Four to the extreme. Not only did she identify as a movie star by the end of the movie, but also as a pinata, a rock, a mistress, and a character in a parody of Ratatouille.
JOY WANG IS ALSO A TYPE FOUR “INDIVIDUALIST”
Joy Wang is the daughter of Evelyn and the antagonist of this story. Like her mother, she also is a Type Four, searching for her place in the universe, and because she can’t find it, she decides to destroy all universes. Yes, like her mother, she also identified as a rock, and a pinata, in parallel dimensions. My question is that if Joy is the daughter of Evelyn, how did she exist in the rock universe? Can rocks pro-create now?
WAYMOND WANG IS A TYPE NINE “PEACEKEEPER”
In all universes except for one, Waymond Wang cowers and refuses to step up to the plate, when the pitcher is throwing underhand, typical of a very unhealthy type nine. His character doesn’t grow throughout the entire movie, and the healthy version of him dies halfway through.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Characters are everything in a movie. Usually, it’s not a good idea to pen a script with a Type Four as both a protagonist and an antagonist, because if you are true to the personality type, which this story was, you’ll get a storyline that goes nowhere fast. The last movie to do this was The Last Jedi, and look how that turned out. Everything Everywhere All At Once’s story was exactly what the title foreshadowed…all over the place. And this happened because neither Joy nor Evelyn knew what they wanted, knew how to solve their inner conflict, and consequently, they wandered throughout the entire movie confused, 99.999% of the time. This happens in real life if you put a bunch of unhealthy Type Fours on the same team. Just imagine a bunch of emo kids trying to screw in a lightbulb. Nothing would get accomplished, everyone’s heads would be in the clouds figuring if one of them identified as a carpenter, and everyone’s feelings would get hurt if someone dared to point out that maybe – they should come back to reality. Back to my criticisms of this movie, it doesn’t help that the only person in a position who can help them find their purpose – is an Unhealthy Type Nine “Peacekeeper.” Yeah, that doesn’t work out too well in real life either.
I’m sorry, I can’t agree with the critics, this movie gets the lowest rating from me.
GRADE: F
Steve Young
