Y2K

If you're familiar at all with the writer/director, Kyle Mooney from his work on SNL, he often parodies TV shows and cartoons of the 90's.and is frankly hilarious.

This movie, however wasn't a parody of the 90's, it simply takes place there, which I feel was a missed opportunity.

The one thing I did like about this movie was the strong nostalgia elicited. To his credit, Mooney does a thorough job of casually referencing just about every major 90's technology/song/slang/fashion etc that I could think of..

Short of that, the plot and characters were lacking and forgettable. There wasn't the snappy or clever dialogue of similar films like Superbad.

Verdict: If you are an early millennial (like myself), you might have a bit of fun spotting the numerous 90's references but don't go in expecting laughs.

FYI, I would highly recommend checking out some of Kyle Mooney's work on SNL. His corny 90's parody sketches make me laugh every time.

This starts strong with its Y2K apocalypse party montage, but once that initial chaos settles, it's like watching a video freeze halfway through loading. By the end, i wondered, "am I supposed to be laughing, scared, or deeply invested in these cardboard cutouts?" I'm still not sure what tone they were going for...

The direction feels like they filmed half the scenes on a Tuesday and the other half months later, then tried to glue it all together with bad ADR. The high school drama is so shallow it makes Degrassi look like Breaking Bad. And the horror? Yeah.... It's a no for me. CGI blood everywhere, practical effects nowhere, and the little makeup they did bother with was giving Spirit Halloween clearance rack.

The comedy doesn't help much either. Most jokes are either so niche I felt like I needed a late-90s pop culture PhD or just plain bad. I laughed a few times, but not usually with the movie-definitely at it. And every time it tried to get serious it flopped. It's like the movie said, "Let's give them whiplash" and went full Don't Look Up tonal chaos, minus the preachy metaphors.

To be fair, there are worse sc-fi horror movies out this year (AfrAId, anyone? Just me?), and worse comedies, too. But Y2K is just there. It's not a full meltdown like reviews may have you believe-it's more like a frozen screen and the mouse is stuck spinning. Fun to think about, frustrating to sit through.

Trailer looked awesome, but trailer makers know what they are doing! They sold it!

The filmmakers, failed. On every level.

This is such a bad film, I had to review. I've only come on here 4 or 5 times to review a film over 20+ years and review when a film is so bad, it deserves no recognition or success. It's just horrific.

No redeeming features at all. Terrible acting, terrible set pieces, poor direction and writing, and a woful silly story that could have been ace, had it been executed correctly. Kills were quick and also pointless, deaths not scary or gory, and so so painfully unfunny.

Also, Fred Durst. It's a no from me. Unsure who this is aimed at, but it's not anyone from 1970-2010.

Trash.

This is one I was looking forward to for a while and I had reasonable expectations for it. However what it ultimately became was kind of forgettable.

Pros.

The humor can really be on point here and there and there is a really good chemistry between the two leads. The best friend dynamic was really on point, with some Super Bad vibes. The aesthetic was also on point, as someone who was in high school during this period, they nailed it. There was some good side characters that really helped pull the weight of the film. Also some death scenes were funny.

Cons.

The story seemed so good at the beginning, it really set up the characters and world nicely but if you were expecting the fun times that the trailer teased, you will be disappointed. After the initial shock of Y2K begins, it really comes undone. There is a main character that dies and it just didn't feel warranted, at least not yet. Then another death of a main side character happens almost immediately afterwards for comic effect and its really funny but doesn't work overall because of the previous death needed more time to sink in, or not happen at all. So two of the funniest characters are dead in like 30 mins... Not a good sign of things to come.

Then the characters just roam around with some side characters that were not the focus before but move into the spot light and it distracts from the main characters plight. Speaking of, he is just so bland and uninteresting that I couldn't care about him or his Crush(Laura) who also was bland, and they try so hard to make us like her but I couldn't.

Combine this with a wasted cameo towards the end and a blah ending and this movie absolutely falls apart and wishing it made good with what the movie the trailer promised. Also the acting is very hit or miss.

Overall, it's pretty forgettable but maybe it can be revisited for nostalgia, much like the movie. So meta.

5/10.

Imagine an SNL Sketch blended with apocalypse vibes, nostalgia, technology, and 90s insanity blended together, mixed up with a bunch of acids that makes things chaotic and all over the place. That's what Y2K is, but the opposite of good.

Kyle Mooney puts all his efforts with the direction, writing and atmosphere approach on the setting and narrative and he does offer some fun vibes of a disaster comedy. Including good production designs and a good setting. The performances from Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, and Rachel Zegler are pretty solid but nothing really stood out.

Unfortunately, the movie does feel like a satire that doesn't take itself seriously, but the issue was it's repetitive atmosphere, direction, and characters that are poorly handled drags the movie down a lot. Almost having most of the charm of the 90s and non-serious fun to feel blown away into nothing.

It feels like Mooney is creating a new Superbad and a satire of the trashy 90s comedy, but kind of misses the point of what made them good and makes it repetitive.

It's not great. I like Brigsby Bear, I'm happy to see Mooney still being able to make works of dumb fun but this wasn't it.