Marvel could learn from Everything Everywhere All at Once for the MCU

The latest entry to our rolling list of the best films of 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a delicious potpourri of genres, from frat comedy to generational drama. It begins with a relatively straightforward plot: Can a mother and daughter learn to appreciate their conflicting worldviews? But instead of taking the most direct path from point A to point B, Everything directors The Daniels scribble their way around the map, stretching the journey across a multiverse more human and relatable than the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

We follow the laundromat owner during an audit by IRS. Instead of following a hero, We get instead of multiverses of madness (sorry we couldn’t resist) as a mother attempts to dismantle her daughter’s nihilistic outlook. Instead of an action movie devoid of sex and romance, we get a fight scene in which men draw their power from improvised butt plugs, and a story about the profound power of love.

Tasha Robinson explains what makes it the most multiverse of all time.

” Even in an infinite universe of possibilities, it’s unlikely that we will ever see another movie like this. But at the same time, it means that every moment of Everything Everywhere is an exciting unknown. There’s no predicting where a Daniels project will travel in any given moment: up a character’s ass, or off into their wildest dreams. Sometimes it’s both at once.”

It is fun to keep up to date on the MCU. It’s like watching a juggler add more balls to her performances until it becomes impossible to stop many things from falling to the ground. But for all of the attention the creators of the MCU give to story, they seem less and less interested in why they’re telling said stories. What do they have to say beyond the occasional wink at real-world problems? Everything Everywhere All at Once could be accused of trying to say too much. We’re not going to argue with that.

If you feel comfortable in a theatre, we recommend the movie. And if you’re not comfortable stepping into the nearest cineplex, that’s okay, too. We curated our five favorite movies starring Everything Everywhere star Michelle Yeoh. You can stream them all from your own home via streaming services!

One final note. Whether you are watching Everything All at Once , or not, you must read our interview. James Hong once more gives an incredible performance. At 93 years old, Hong is still doing some of his best work.

This week on YouTube | “BioShock Infinite‘s Bread Boy went viral on Twitter in February, so we asked developer Gwen Frey to weigh in on how exactly she made this king of crumb. The reasons the Bread Boy exists in the Burial at Sea DLC point to the strange, specific problems that developers have to overcome every day. Gwen has been hard at work creating satirical puzzle games Lab Rat , and her own studio .”

Four stories to read

Image: MAPPA

Attack on Titan showed the industry just how big anime could get | Following the “surprise” announcement of another extension to its “Final” Season, it feels like Attack on Titan may never end. It could be for the best, since the show is a symbol of so much about the anime industry.

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Three things to watch

Image: Paramount Pictures

Sonic 2 in theaters | It’s better than the first Sonic movie. Will you remember any of the story a week from now? Probably not.

Ambulance in theaters | You might have heard Michael Bay say less than loving things about some of the CGI in this film. We spoke to the director and he explained what he meant. “We did very little CGI for this movie,” Bay said. “There’s some really good and then there’s a couple shots that I’m like, ‘I wish I had more time,’ whatever. There’s some very good work [in this movie]. CGI has always been a great asset to me. However, it’s full of explosions and car crashes. This last sentence, however, is what we need in most Bay movies.

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Plus, everything new to streaming!

Three games to play

Image: Three Bees

Perfect Tides | Polygon Recommends | Millennials are finally old enough to write auto-biographical video games about life as an emo teenager in the early ’00s. Here’s your chance to experience (or re-experience) the magic and terror of logging onto AOL Instant Messenger on a dial-up modem. Created by Meredith Gran (the author of online comic Octopus Pie) and her studio Three Bees, Perfect Tides is heart-warming as it is gutting. Available on Windows PC and MacOS.

Norco (again! ) | Okay, we had enough time to finish this fantastic point-and-click adventure and now we can’t stop talking about it. We’ve added it to our rolling list of the best games of 2022. The newsletter could be filled with more information about the game but we’ll just focus on the two most important details. First, Norco‘s mind-map mechanic is a great narrative tool that makes this stellar sci-fi adventure relatively easy to follow. And second, Norco gets that smartphones may be hurting us as much as they’re helping. Available on Windows PC or MacOS.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga | Unfortunately, we didn’t receive review code until the day of the game’s release. Reviewers who had access to the new Star Wars game ahead of time have been generally positive. You can also read our reporting on the studio’s trouble with extensive crunch. Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Free game of the week

Cellar Door Games

Rogue Legacy | Rogue Legacy 2 will exit Early Access and get a full release later this month. It’s time to get back in touch with the original. Studio Cellar Door Games has updated Rogue Legacy quite a bit since release, so the 2013 rogue-like still feels fresh in 2022. Available for free on Epic Games Store from April 7 to April 14.

The best of the rest

Graphic: Pete Volk/Polygon