******SPACESHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!******

I have major respect for director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “Wall-E”), and I think he got a raw deal from Disney regarding publicity for his underrated “John Carter” (2012); the epic, though imperfect adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” books. Stanton’s evolution from high-end Pixar classics to live-action movies has been a little rocky, but interesting. Stanton’s live-action films carry the visual elegance of his Pixar features, though his live-action characters often, ironically, lack the passion of their animated predecessors.

However, screenwriter Colby Day is another story. His recent “Spaceman” (2024), an Adam Sandler sci-fi movie for Netflix, was a hot mess; an uninspired mishmash of “Solaris” with a calculated dash of author Andy Weir’s wildly popular book (and soon to be movie) “Project Hail Mary” thrown in for good measure. Day’s confused and forgettable film sees a large, spider-like alien playing de facto marriage counselor for Sandler’s troubled Eastern European cosmonaut. That movie was two wasted hours I’ll never get back.

The partnering of Stanton and Day brings us “In the Blink of an Eye” (2026) a Hulu/Disney+ release with bits of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Interstellar,” as well as Stanton’s own “Wall-E.” The movie links those bits with several characters and their connected stories across three distinct time periods; the end of the Neanderthal era 45,000 years ago, the present day, and the 25th century. It’s in the 25th century where we see a desperate attempt to colonize real-life exoplanet Kepler 16b with a ship full of frozen embryos and a bioengineered astronaut acting as humanity’s mother.

All of this potentially epic story is shoehorned into a 94 minute, made-for-TV minute runtime.

“In the Blink of an Eye” (2026)

45,000 Years Ago

Note: The Neanderthal makeup is subtle enough to remain in keeping with current anthropological research, and the actors certainly do their best, but somehow the movie’s Neanderthal sequence lacks a certain tactility and grit. The British Columbian wilderness looks more postcard-perfect than harsh and primal. Even Hera’s fatal childbirth is a bit sanitized; we see her water breaking, but the movie sits out the worst of it, remaining outside with Thorn (Jorgito Vargas Jr) and his daughter, Lark (Skywalker Hughes).

Note: The acorn that Thorn palms earlier becomes a linking element between the three segments, which are all cut together as one overlapping movie. This constant cutting between past, present and future makes us all too aware that we’re solving a millennia-long puzzle, which undermines lasting investment in any one segment or its characters. Showing past and future in a linear storytelling fashion certainly worked well enough for Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” one of this movie’s stated inspirations.

Note: The Neanderthal segment’s message is community over isolationism, or to borrow an adage, “it takes a village to raise a child.” This is a message brimming with optimism, but one that also feels a bit out of touch with our deeply troubled present. Nevertheless, the sentiment is appreciated, however cloying its delivery (as I write this review, I just read the United States and Israel have began a deadly new war with Iran).

Present Day

Note: Rashida Jones is the daughter of actress Peggy Lipton (“Mod Squad”) and musical producer/artist/legend Quincy Jones (“The Color Purple”). Actor/musician Daveed Diggs was in the original Broadway cast of “Hamilton” and had roles in Pixar’s “Souls” and the 2023 live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”

Note: Once again, the time-jumping between eras quickly becomes a tiresome gimmick that only saps each segment of its impact. It might’ve been much more impactful seeing Claire pore over Thorn’s fossilized hand after viewers had already seen and understood the long-dead Neanderthal’s story…

Note: Rashida Jones’ mother Peggy Lipton passed away in 2019, while her father Quincy Jones passed away in 2024, shortly after this long-gestating movie wrapped production in 2023. This personal experience no doubt made Rashida Jones’ performance as a grieving daughter all the more resonant and authentic.

Note: Am I the only one who had an ethical issue with Greg stealing an ancient acorn found in the fossilized hand of a near-pristine Neanderthal specimen to turn it into a trinket for his girlfriend? It’s a rom-com contrivance that undermines the movie’s stated respect for science (Claire’s raison d’être).

Note: Claire and Greg’s son David (Luc Roderique) is a biotech genius who learns the trick to greatly expanding human lifespans, but his superficial, new Apple product-style TED Talk never gets into the ethics of or potential side-effects with artificially expanding human lifespans through genetic engineering. Even worse, this new technology is under the proprietary banner of a large corporation known as ELIXIR (shades of AppleTV’s “Severance” with Lumen), and what has ever gone wrong with a mega-corporation controlling a world-changing technology, right…?

The 25th Century

Note: A major astronomical nit with Kepler-16b, which has since been revealed to be a Saturn-sized gas giant in a binary star system, which directly contradicts the movie’s depiction of it as a smaller, rocky, Mars-like planet suitable for seeding with Earth life. True, Kepler-16b’s orbit puts it in a “Goldilocks zone” (the distance from a star to a planet where stable liquid water can theoretically exist on its surface), but unless the planet is a moon of gas giant Kepler-16b, it would not be a likely candidate for terraforming.

Note: The movie does a bit of a HAL-9000 fake-out with the ship’s artificial intelligence Roscoe (Rhona Rees), suggesting the AI might be holding back information from Coakley. Even its blue-ringed interface echoes HAL’s red eye. Ultimately, Roscoe is revealed to be benevolent, much like the similarly ambiguous Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) in Duncan Jones’ superior sci-fi film“Moon” (2009), which this segment homages. I also enjoy seeing gifted comedic actress Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, “Barbie”) flexing her dramatic chops.

Note: The segment’s story of a lone astronaut struggling to keep plants alive on a long spaceflight with the help of artificial intelligences strongly echoes the late visual FX artist/filmmaker Douglas Trumbull’s ecology-themed sci-fi movie “Silent Running” (1972). Once again, this movie pulls inspiration from multiple sources.

Note: As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse has famously said on many occasions, “If you have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then you have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.”

Note: We see Coakley telling V (Yeji Kim) that drones had been sent ahead to Kepler-16b to seed the planet with oxygen-making trees and plants. But what if some other as-yet-unknown factor made this effort fail? We used to think Martian soil was suitable for farming, but we now know it’s rich in perchlorates (inorganic salts used to produce rocket fuels), which would make terraforming Mars a futile endeavor (beyond the lack of a magnetosphere to shield its surface from deadly ultraviolet and cosmic rays).

Note: At the end of its three intertwined segments, there is the acorn (a powerful fertility symbol in Celtic and Nordic cultures), as well as their themes of motherhood and continuance. In each segment, a maternal figure is lost (Hera, Claire’s mother, and female-voiced Roscoe) only to be superseded by another (the Cro-Magnons, Claire herself, Coakley). Unlike the more traditional maternal roles in the past and present segments, the future segment offers the most nontraditional take on motherhood, with embryos maturated in microwave oven-style artificial wombs (not to mention an openly-gay actress playing the single mother of Kepler-16b’s transplanted human race). While that refreshingly progressive take on motherhood is certainly appreciated, this movie ultimately lacks sincerity and depth. It doesn’t help that the overlapping editing of the three segments saps each of their resonance. It’s a noble attempt, if nothing else.

The End.

Summing It Up

More than anything else, Andrew Stanton’s “In the Blink of an Eye” is about the loss of parents and continuance through children and community. Not exactly a groundbreaking or boundary-pushing theme for a wannabe epic science-fiction/drama spanning 45,500 years or so. While there are clear influences from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Interstellar” and Stanton’s own “Wall-E,” this movie is not in those leagues. Its heavy-handed, made-for-TV messaging is delivered with the slick packaging of a Folger’s coffee commercial.

There is nothing terribly new or innovative under the sun (or any other star) within this film. The Neanderthal story in particular lacks texture and grit, despite the conviction of the actors in their facial/dental prosthetics. Maybe if the powers-that-be had shown the full, grisly horror of prehistoric childbirth without cutting away after Hera’s water breaks, this story might’ve had some genuine, unflinching impact. As it is, the trek of a nomadic Neanderthal family into a welcoming Cro-Magnon community is less about the harsh trials of our ancient ancestors and more about superficial “it takes a village” tropes.

Despite some solid performances from Kate McKinnon, Rashida Jones, Daveed Diggs, Jorgito Vargas Jr. and others, the characters in each era are given such fleeting, jumbled screen time in which to tell their stories that we don’t really get to know any of them well enough to feel the full impact of their chain-linked stories. A link forged between them by a single acorn. That fossilized acorn from the Neanderthal era is gold-plated by professor Greg into a belated Christmas gift for girlfriend/anthropologist Claire, turning an ancient find into a romantic trinket. The acorn is also a powerful fertility symbol, too. Yikes. Might as well be screaming at the audience to drop everything right now, and start making babies.

Of course, the union of Claire and Greg leads to their biotech-genius son David, whose ideas for increasing the human lifespan lead directly to Coakley; the bioengineered future mother of the human race. All possible through David’s company ELIXIR, because the loving embrace of unfettered capitalism always brings salvation, right…? Coakley’s story is the most intriguing of the three, despite its many callbacks to earlier, better sci-fi movies. Nice to see gifted comedic performer Kate McKinnon flex her dramatic chops. Nevertheless, the notion of seeding and terraforming a raw planet for human colonization in another star system makes far less logistical sense than fixing our own polluted yet still viable planet. Even Stanton’s earlier “Wall-E” understood that assignment way back in 2008.

Despite its scientific aspirations, the schmaltzy screenwriting from Colby Day weighs down the potential in Andrew Stanton’s “In the Blink of an Eye.” Instead of an epic odyssey reaching out to the stars and spanning tens of thousands of years, we get a clean, polite little film with all the sincerity and depth of a nice Mother’s Day card.

Where to Watch

“In the Blink of an Eye” is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.