In the Blink of an Eye uses three timelines to tell a lightweight tale about the persistence of human life. The film had its moments, but overall it was nothing to rave about.

In the Blink of an Eye blends its three timelines into one narrative that moves among time constantly.

A family of Neanderthals lived 45,000 years ago. Thorn (Jorge Vargas) was the father, Hera (Tanaya Beatty) the mother, and Lark (Skywalker Hughes) was one of their children. They met and mingled their DNA with a group of Homo Sapiens.

In the present, Claire (Rashida Jones) was a scientist studying the fossilized remains of a Neanderthal. She married Greg (Daveed Diggs) and the two of them produced a brilliant son who worked with DNA.

A few hundred years in the future, Coakley (Kate McKinnon) was an age altered woman on a ship to a distant planet. Coakley could live almost forever. Her AI companion was Rosco (Rhona Rees). The ship carried a cargo of babies who would populate the new planet. When the time came, Coakley would start the process of birthing this population of babies to get them ready for life on the new home.

There was no moralizing about why humans had to find a new planet to live on. The one they found needed advance work in the form of drones planting trees to ready the atmosphere with enough oxygen to support life. That took a few decades, but Coakley’s travel to the planet took decades as well.

The film stitched these timelines together with DNA and some artifacts. In the end there was a sense of continuity and cohesion, but I thought the message lacked power. In fact, I’m not sure what the message of the film was. Hope, perhaps? Or the belief that technology sets our species above the thousands of extinct species that lived in the past. The trailer proclaims “all we share and all we experience echoes across time.” That sounds like a reasonable message for the film. Let’s take it.

In the Blink of an Eye kept me engaged enough to watch it. Mainly I was curious how they would tie it all together in the end. The actors did their best with the limited material they had, and the whole thing looked gorgeous. But I’m not urging you to rush to watch it. If you want to check it out, it’s streaming on Hulu/Disney+.