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To answer you specifically about storytelling: the film lays out inter-generational family trauma along with mid-life identity crises and cultural confrontations about what's traditionally considered "strength" or "success". Then it flips to a sci-fi story whose multi-versality references films as varied as Buckaroo Banzai and the works of Wong Kar Wai and Pixar. Each different universe is actually lit and shot differently, much less performed differently. And if you can name any other "basic multiverse" movie that takes 5 minutes to have the characters have a subtitled philosophical conversation on the meaning of life while they exist as motionless rocks, I'd sure like to know.
None of that is "virtue-signalling", that's just gutsy cinema.
Equating this to a Jackie Chan movie is mind-boggling to me (and kinda racist? Like "any" Jackie Chan movie is all the same??) Same for Marvel. They squandered all the "multi-verse" ideas and did the old Star Trek evil flip of a familiar character in the Dr. Strange sequel while featuring a one-other-verse of predictable, bland backgrounds. I'm not really invested in turning this into some kind of "Let me teach you about cinema" moment though, so I'll let others chime in if they want to note other ways the film broke ground.
How is it groundbreaking in storytelling? It's a basic multiverse storyline. We've seen marvel do it the same year. If this deserves it then any jack chan movie deserves it tbh.
Listen, I'm saying this as someone who loved Multiverse of Madness, but even so, it doesn't hold a candle to EEAAO (neither does No Way Home. Maybe Into The Spider-Verse in the medium of animation). This movie was amazing, groundbreaking, and absolutely deserved to win. Why? Because despite being a "fun multiverse movie" AND tying all the characters and themes together in a mind-bending plot, it pushes the envelope, experiments, and demonstrates what can be done with the medium of film while also making a highly emotional AND philosophically rich story. How could it not win Best Picture? Why should it not, compared to any other movie this year? And on top of ALL that, it naturally presents a diverse story of an Asian family and a lesbian daughter in a culturally significant environment. It's one of the best films I've ever seen.
But, that's just my two cents. None of this is objective.