Reviews

First and foremost, this movie is definitely a masterpiece in my opinion. Disclaimer, I'm not saying it is the only masterpiece. In the history of movies and TV shows, there are so many shining stars. 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is destined to be one of the stars.

Music

The music goes hand-in-hand with the story and emotion development. Take the first 12-minute intro clip as an example, it goes from stressful, disordered, conflicting and confusing music to spooky and mysterious music, and then to calm but sad music. In the meantime, in every little highlight / climax in the plot and emotions, background music was left blank to allow the audience to focus on the key conversation and get ready for the next chapter of story or a different feeling / atmosphere / emotion with a different feel of background music.

All of these brilliant uses of background music in the first 12-minute intro clip of the movie, together with all other things make me feel an immersed emotional experience in the character and life of Evelyn as an audience.

Dual Storylines

I see 2 storylines in this movie. One is the entertaining sci-fi storyline and another one is the touching family interrelationship repair and self-salvation story. It feels like a top quality double-side sweater. You can wear it with either side and all the threads are intertwined and woven together. Most lines can be read with two different meanings that serve well for both storylines.

So Many Elements with Different Tastes

Commercially, I believe it will be a successful movie as well, because I can see so many elements in this movie, which will satisfy a wide range of audiences.

It has so many fun setups and humour, such as the jumping pads that are only triggered by the weird stuff.

The fighting scenes are comedy action style, which remind me of a lot of the Jackie Chan classics. Plus the good amount of martial art performance experience of actors and actresses here make the actions more legit, like Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Andy Le and Brian Le. Plus plus in some side shots of the actor Ke Huy Quan (Waymond, the husband), he really looks like Jacky Chen somehow. As an audience, I really enjoyed every fight scene in this movie, which certainly brings up the energy level of the movie.

This movie touches so many topics, such as family member relationship management, especially from generation to generation, self value, communications and interactions with other human beings, and depression, which are all embedded and integrated well in the plot and get me as an audience thinking more after watching. Especially the two highlights like Waymond saving Evelyn and Evelyn then saving her daughter are really engaging, moving and encouraging to think more and beyond the story itself.

With so many elements, the crew doesn't turn the movie into chaos or a stitching product, but a greatly balanced movie.

Using Peter Marshall's definition of a good movie, I think this is an excellent movie because it tells a compelling story with believable characters who make me feel Everything Everywhere All at Once.

So at the end, a big thank you and many congratulations to the Directors and Writers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, all the talents, performers and every production team member who made such a brilliant movie for everyone!