In the Blink of an Eye (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – Three storylines, spanning thousands of years, intersect and reflect on hope, connection and the circle of life.

My Take – We have seen stories about human experiences and the cosmic meditation on life’s fragility before, most famously in Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life (2011), and we have seen the evolution of the species from cave-dwellers to intergalactic astronauts in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

We have also seen such stories in time-spanning inter-connectivity in the form of Cloud Atlas (2012) from the Wachowskis. While some of these films have worked by being rightfully profound and life-affirming, others have failed by being trite and overly-sentimental. Aspects drawn by how each filmmaker works within the confines of their own personal sensibilities.

The latest to take a crack at such a narrative is Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E, Finding Dory, and the upcoming Toy Story 5), who in his second live-action effort following the industry-reshaping failure of John Carter (2012), tries to ostensibly pay an ode to the perseverance and sensitivity of the human race. Unfolding across three timelines that gradually mirror and refract one another, his film without a doubt has an ambitious structure, the kind of narrative gamble that feels increasingly rare in mainstream cinema. Something both cosmic and sincere.

Unfortunately for him, his awkwardly interwoven tale of long past, present and distant future is also disastrously disappointing viewing experience. Spanning thousands of years though somehow feeling painfully small in scope, the film has plenty of big ideas about life, death, and how we endure. However, this feeble sci-fi film, written by Colby Day, who previously penned the similarly dissatisfying Adam Sandler-starring Spaceman (2024), does little with them, allowing whatever thematic or philosophical ambition to fade away into nothing.

Sure, the intentions are clearly honorable and even respectable, and as crazy as the world may seem right now, sometimes you really do just have to sit back and admire the miracle that is humanity. But that’s about as far as it goes as the yawn-inducing tale itself feels destined to be utterly forgotten the moment you finish watching. Just as the title refers to how fast time can pass, leaving us struggling to remember what came before.

Set in the three different timelines, the story follows three interconnected tales. The first one takes place in 45,000 BCE, at end of the Neanderthal era, the now-extinct group of humans that predated the Homosapians and follows a Neanderthal mother named Hera (Tanaya Beatty), a Neanderthal father named Thorn (Jorge Vargas), and their Neanderthal daughter named Lark (Skywalker Hughes), as they struggle to survive in what is now Vancouver, Canada.

The second one takes place in the present-day and follows an anthropologist doctoral candidate named Claire (Rashida Jones), who is studying ancient remains of a proto-human and struggling with the sobering news that her mother is dying of terminal cancer. All the while dealing with the beginning of a budding romance with another doctoral candidate, Greg (Daveed Diggs).

The third one takes place about 200 years in the future and follows Coakley (Kate McKinnon), a longevity-enhanced pilot, and her AI co-pilot, ROSCO, who are over 200 years into their mission to find a new planetary home for the human species, and still have over 100 years to go. But when Oakley discovers a disease afflicting the space ship’s oxygen-producing plants, it’s up to her and ROSCO to find a solution to finish the mission or let the entire human race die out.

Although introduced chronologically, the three stories intertwine throughout, with segments connected by visual bridges and overlapping audio from one passage to the next, underscoring their similarities.

Sadly, all of disparate narrative threads are total nonstarters, mainly as director Stanton and editor Mollie Goldstein employ a free-flowing structure that left me wanting more.

Yes, much of the production looks stunning thanks to Ole Bratt Birkeland’s cinematography, which would have looked tremendous on a cinema screen rather than at home, however, the film explores familiar themes like sickness, aging, death and love throughout the ages, with adding any new to the narrative.

Ironically enough, it is the cavemen – the farthest removed in time, language and relevance to everyone else – that get the closest to suggesting the awe the film so strenuously seeks to evoke in its rush-speed, ludicrously techno-optimist ending. Halloween costume-esque fur dresses aside, there’s something tantalizingly compelling in this chapter’s brutal simplicity, its barest imagination of primitive survival.

The less said about the second story the better. Simply told, it’s not a great sign for your grief-based subplot when scenes aren’t completely clear about whether the subject of that grief has actually died yet.

The future scenes are the weakest of the three, if only because the story has the potential to be the strongest. A segment which given us a nicer version of HAL-9000 in Rosco—who, despite a minimal screen presence, proves more compelling than her human counterpart—and its expedition that will take humanity into a new realm. Ultimately, the story once again becomes one of self-sacrifice and friendship alongside the overarching priority to save humanity. An epic runtime and fleshed-out stories may have better served the material, making it more rewarding to step back and see as a whole. Instead, we are left with something that comprises of simple stories and familiar themes.

Performance wise, Rashida Jones is fine, so is Kate McKinnon who is typically more outlandish. Daveed Diggs is comparatively more likable than the two. Jorge Varga, Tanaya Beatty and Skywalker Hughes play their parts to the best of the script allows. On the whole, ‘In the Blink of an Eye‘ is a forgettable sci-fi drama that collapses under its tricky ambitions.