The most interesting thing about In The Blink Of An Eye is who directed it.

Andrew Stanton got his start at PIXAR, directing films like A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, and my personal favorite, WALL-E.  (He also directed Toy Story 5, which will be coming out later this year.)  Stanton’s PIXAR films were some of the best to come out of that legendary studio.  Especially when it came to WALL-E, he showed not only his skill as a visual storyteller but also his ability to craft compelling narratives that sold their message without necessarily feeling preachy.  (If you didn’t cry while watching WALL-E, you don’t have a heart.)  Stanton’s first live action film was John Carter, a legendary flop that was more betrayed by its producers than its director.  After the failure of John Carter, Stanton redeemed himself by directing episodes of shows like Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, and For All Mankind.

In The Blink Of An Eye is Stanton’s second live action film.  It’s an earnest film.  One can tell that both Stanton and the film’s screenwriter, Colby Day, felt they had something important to say.  (Day’s screenplay appeared on the 2016 Black List, which is the annual list of the “best” unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.  Unfortunately, as anyone who has sat through Cedar Rapids can tell you, merely getting on the Black List is not a guarantee that a script will be transformed into a good or even watchable movie.)  Like WALL-E, it’s a film with a message.  Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as watchable or compelling as Stanton’s animated work.

It’s a film that tells three interconnected stories, each one taking place at a different time in human history.  In 45,000 BC, a family of cave people struggle to survive and to start a civilization on the beach of a largely untouched Earth.  In the 21st century, anthropologist Claire (Rashida Jones) falls in love with Greg (Daveed Diggs) and eventually, they have a son who inherits their shared interest in science and their appreciation for Paleolithic culture.  (Don’t let Claire hear you suggest that Neanderthals were dumb.)  Meanwhile, in the far future, Coakley (Kate McKinnon) lives on a spaceship where her only companion is an AI named Rosco (voiced by Rhona Rees).   When Coakley’s mission appears to be in jeopardy, Rosco suggests that the only solution might be Coakley shutting Rosco down.  The stories share a connection, one that most audiences will guess before the film gets around to revealing it.

As I said, In The Blink Of An Eye is an earnest and well-intentioned film.  (Colby Day also wrote the screenplay for the underrated Spaceman, a film that dealt with similar themes.)  And yet, it really doesn’t work.  The pacing is off.  This is a 90 minute film that feels considerably longer.  The stories themselves are not particularly compelling.  The cave people are well-acted and I appreciated the fact that they spoke they’re own language as opposed to crude English but they were also way too clean.  For a group of people who lived without soap, toothpaste, razors, and deodorant, they were way too physically pleasant to be credible.  Rashida Jones and Daveed Diggs are sweet when they’re falling in love but then they become rather insufferable once they start a family.  As for the future scenes, Kate McKinnon has never been a particularly consistent actress and that trend continues here.  She gets outacted by the voice of Rosco.  (Having the AI be more likable than the actual human worked well in 2001 but it’s far less effective here.)

As I said, it was well-intentioned but, in the end, it just left me wanting to watch WALL-E again.