Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) ((TOP))
Before and after a tense meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre, Waymond's body is taken over by Alpha-Waymond, a version of Waymond from the "Alphaverse." Alpha-Waymond explains to Evelyn over the course of the story that many parallel universes exist because every choice a person makes creates a new alternative universe. His wife, the late Alpha-Evelyn, discovered the existence of these universes and developed "verse-jumping" technology, which enables one to transfer their consciousness to a parallel-universe self and gain their skills and memories by performing a bizarre and "statistically improbable" action, such as eating a tube of chap stick. The multiverse is threatened by Jobu Tupaki, the Alphaverse version of Joy, whose mind was splintered after Alpha-Evelyn pushed her to extensively verse-jump. Jobu is nigh-omniscient due to experiencing all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will. She has created an "everything bagel" topped with literally everything,[15] which appears as a toroid singularity[16] that could destroy the multiverse.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Consequence's Clint Worthington wrote that "for all its dadaist absurdism and blink-if-you-miss-it [sic] pace, Daniels weaves the chaotic possibilities into the multiverse into a cohesive story about the travails of the road not traveled, and the need to carve out your own meaning in a meaningless universe."[44] Describing Jobu Tupaki's modus operandi, Worthington notes "the living contradiction that is the everything bagel: if you put everything on a bagel, what more is left? And if you've experienced everything that the multiverse can offer, what's the point of any of it?"[44] Kwan said that the everything bagel concept "did two things. It allowed us to talk about nihilism without being too eye roll-y. And it creates a MacGuffin: a doomsday device. If, in the first half of the movie, people think that the bagel is here to destroy the world, and in the second half you realize it's a depressed person trying to destroy themselves, it just takes everything about action movies and turns it into something more personal."[16] The writer George Gillett argues that the movie is "a coming-of-age film for the internet generation", with the multiverse resembling virtual environments which viewers increasingly exist within. [45]
The multiverse has officially invaded our pop culture landscape, and the idea of seeking characters from alternate realities can be found everywhere. Of course, when reality is so frequently bleak, getting a chance to escape it and get a glimpse of a different universe is ever so appealing. Everything Everywhere All at Once finds fresh soil to plant a complex seed in this conceit, a fresh take on the trend that is truly bizarre, gross, heartfelt, and honest. This is a work of art about staring into the abyss, taking stock of the darkness around us, and choosing kindness over despair. It also features Michelle Yeoh in an alternate dimension where people have giant hot dogs for fingers, so there's that too.
That Everything Everywhere All at Once is produced by previous Marvel mainstays the Russo brothers, and that it comes out while Spider-Man: No Way Home still swings in theaters, is ironic, because with a fraction of its budget, this film makes for an infinitely better multiverse production than any superhero movie has ever gotten close to. While the idea of a multiverse is exciting, for sure, TV and film has so far mostly focused on its wild, big-scale possibilities. But the Daniels manage to both explore the larger, galaxy-brain implications of this concept, while also telling a rather intimate story of feeling like your life is leading nowhere and the world is going to hell, while deciding to embrace the small moments of joy and just be nicer to those around you. This is a film that could only be made now, a movie that encompasses everything, but can be appreciated and understood everywhere, all at once. 041b061a72