‘In the Blink of an Eye’ Review: Rashida Jones, Kate McKinnon and Some Cavemen Teach Us a Maudlin, Obvious Message About Life

I will admit upfront that I did cry, briefly, toward the end of Andrew Stanton’s new triptych film In the Blink of an Eye, a pharmaceutical ad-looking movie about the interconnected sprawl of humanity. I realize the movie’s myriad faults, its cold and sleek approximation of mortal meaning, its hokey techno-optimistic vision of the future of us. And yet, a particular aspect of the film’s time-spanning vastness managed to get me. What exactly did the trick must remain a mystery lest I spoil the movie, but know that it is possible to get something out of what is otherwise constructed like the world’s longest, most expensive, vaguest Super Bowl commercial for some kind of secretly sinister mega-conglomerate.

In the Blink of Eye was, almost a decade ago, a Black List screenplay by Colby Day. Three years ago, it was shot by Stanton, a Pixar fixture whose only other live-action film,…