In a post-pandemic world the big audiences are flocking to movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is a comical multiverse film featuring superhero icons teaming up with other superheroes. The film includes plans gone awry, new superhero characters coming around, and many more twists. Unfortunately, although it has a creative style of filmmaking and it starts off strong, the creativity ultimately goes overboard, the film becomes exhausting, and it comes off as over-done.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang, a Chinese immigrant who has personal and financial challenges. She is struggling with her daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, and her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, as well as her tax lady, Deirdre, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Evelyn suddenly falls into a virtual adventure where she realizes, in different universes, how her life could be if certain potential scenarios in her life happen or don’t happen.

The film did have its comical high points, especially from Yeoh’s performance. It also throws in some slapstick violence and has some silly dialogue that is entertaining.

The film relates a lot to a film that I love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which mixed lots of irreverent backstories blended into a multiverse. But unlike that film, Everything Everywhere All at Once has just too much going on—too many additions to the central story and too many unexplained backstories.

I’m not prepared to say that Everything Everywhere All at Once is a terrible experience, and some may be able to handle this crazy universe more than others. One experience was enough for me. Everything Everywhere all at Once is a film that will leave some in awe and others will be bored or confused. The film is clever on many levels, and I enjoyed bits and pieces, but not to a great extent. It just was not as spectacular as I was anticipating. Just two and a half stars for Everything Everywhere All at Once.