Metacritic reviews

Life in a Day is, without exaggeration, a profound achievement.

It's our equivalent of that '80s art-film kaleidoscope "Koyaanisqatsi."

Moving and insightful. Not a classic by any means, but a fascinating glimpse of the way we live today.

Life in a Day is an experimental project driven by the Internet at its best, where connectivity among the planet's population has become a reality.

Life really sings when it's simply pulling together thematic montages - of waking up, food preparation or answers to the question "What do you fear?" - or letting a genuine moment unfold without comment.

It's a pretty experiment with no apparent results, but plenty of marketability.

If nothing else, Life In A Day serves as a fine time capsule, recording some of what life was like on Earth in 2010.

Does the film add up to something more than a stunt? Maybe not. I was captivated by the several hours I recently saw of Christian Marclay's 24-hour-long "The Clock," a video mashup in which thousands of clips from hundred of movies contain watches and clocks telling the same time that spectators can read on their wrists. Life in a Day doesn't aspire to such intricacy, but it's fascinating all the same, an electronic update of Alexander Pope's maxim that the proper study of mankind is man.

The resulting object is less about the world than about itself, and feels like a hey-that's-neat 90-minute troll through the video-sharing website (which co-presents the project).

Only a few snippets escape the uncritical narcissism that the film celebrates and, despite their unimaginative employment, they stand as something of a rebuke to the film's dominant images.