REVIEW — “Y2K”

Travis Dale • December 5, 2024 • 0

After co-writing and starring in the surprisingly heartwarming Brigsby Bear, Saturday Night Live vet Kyle Mooney makes his directorial debut with the comically unfunny, nostalgic horror misfire Y2K.

The film follows two dorky high school juniors: lovesick computer nerd Eli (Jaeden Martell) — who has a puppy dog crush on smart popular girl Laura (Rachel Zegler) — and his bombastic charismatic wingman best friend Danny (Julian Dennison) as they attempt to end the millennium with a bang and a midnight kiss at a New Year’s Eve house party hosted by Soccer Chris (The Kid LAROI).

But when the clock strikes midnight, the shit hits the fan as Y2K really happens, machines begin attacking humans, and computers attempt to take over the world. With such a fantastically clever premise (that I’m surprised has not yet been made into a film), Y2K has all the potential to become a memorable horror-comedy where Can’t Hardly Wait meets Maximum Overdrive. And while the man-versus-machine comedy gets off to a promising start complete with a crowd-uniting rendition of Sisqó’s classic “Thong Song,” it quickly devolves into an unfunny survival dramedy when the group of misfit teens flee into the woods to escape the evil machines.

For starters, Y2K doesn’t spend enough time fleshing out its characters and the ones that do stand out, die early-on in the film. There is also very little partying in this party movie and not enough lead up in anticipation of the New Year’s Eve countdown. What could’ve been edited into a tense moment with a ticking clock to doomsday is treated as an afterthought: no one is gathered around the TV or huddled together in celebration, they’re not even paying attention to the time. It might as well be 8 PM.

It seems that more attention and awareness is given to the film’s Tubthumping 90s-era soundtrack and pop culture mentions (AOL chat, video rental stores, and slow-loading dial-up porn) than its pacing and character development, but given co-writer Mooney’s hit or miss track record, I’m not surprised. Most of his SNL and Good Neighbor sketches begin with an admirable premise that is steeped in nostalgia, like his Netflix series Saturday Morning All-Star Hits! where he sends up the Nelson twins complete with 90s Saturday morning cartoons that parody the likes of Denver the Last Dinosaur. However, his jokes usually go on too long and are stretched too thin by awkward and insecure stoner dweeb characters that spout tubular catchphrases. Y2K is a similar slacker cringe-comedy miss where Mooney and co-writer Evan Winter rely on weed jokes, shock humor and gross-out moments to achieve their biggest laughs. Although, there is one sudden death that is so absurdly abrupt and random that it had me howling with laughter.

The film also features a cast of 90s cliche side characters like wannabe rapper Farkus (Eduardo Franco), rocker girl Ash (Lachlan Watson) and dreadlocked stoner Garrett (Mooney), as well as appearances by Tim Heidecker and 90s icon Alicia Silverstone as Eli’s parents and stunt cameos from turn-of-the-century nu metal rock gods: Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst and Wes Borland (playing themselves). The cast is solid and performs well with what they’re given, unfortunately, the script lets them down.

Y2K’s jokes are few and far between and the plotting is so meandering that it’s unclear how it’s getting a wide release in theaters. It seems like it would have fared better premiering directly on a streamer like Netflix, perhaps with its release timed to drop at midnight on New Year’s Eve, when everyone is just drunk or high enough to appreciate its pothead humor. But for me, the film is about as limp as Fred Durst’s bizkit.

Here’s why: one of the biggest and best parties I ever went to was on New Year’s Eve 1999. Fresh out of high school, we joked about what would happen if Y2K was real and computers tried to kill us all. So when I saw the trailer for this film, I was genuinely excited at its premise and optimistic that Mooney could pull off such an ambitious throwback horror-comedy that captures a moment in time when the future was both scary and bright. Unfortunately, the director fell back on his lazy tropes and didn’t rise to the occasion. What a letdown that Y2K is a disaster of a disaster film.