December 17, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Kyle Mooney
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city from December 31, 1999 to January 2, 2000, the sci-fi/horror/comedy film “Y2K” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A group of high school students and other people battle against machines and gadgets that have become homicidal on January 1, 2000.
Culture Audience: “Y2K” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Kyle Mooney, and silly horror comedies where teenage characters are the main focus.
The horror comedy “Y2K” is about people versus machines that go on a homicidal rampage during a Y2K electronic crisis. The real haywire mess is this entire dimwitted movie that cares more about resurrecting Limp Bizkit’s old hits than having a good story. Unfortunately, “Y2K” takes what could have been a potentially great concept for a horror movie and squanders it on a bunch of mindless scenes, most of which are neither funny nor scary.
Former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Kyle Mooney makes his directorial debut with “Y2K,” which he co-wrote with Evan Winter. “Y2K” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. The movie takes place in an unnamed U.S. city but was actually filmed in New Jersey, in Ringwood, Chatham Borough, and Clark.
“Y2K” is based on the real-life scare that people around the world had in the late 1990s, when computers and other electronic-operated machines were predicted to malfunction on January 1, 2000, because the machines supposedly weren’t programmed for any year past 1999. That massive electronic meltdown didn’t happen in real life, but the plot of “Y2K” speculates what would have happened if machines didn’t just melt down but also went on a killing spree. The production notes for “Y2K” say that Mooney thought of the movie’s concept “in the haze of a New Year’s hangover.” And unfortunately, the ends results are “Y2K” looks like a movie that was written and directed in a brain-addled haze.
“Y2K” uses a lot of the same, tired clichés that are found in many horror movies where the main characters are teenagers. Cliché #1: A nerdy and introverted protagonist with a more outgoing best friend both want to be accepted by the “cool kids” in their school. In “Y2K,” these two outsiders are shy Eli (played by Jaeden Martell) and goofy Daniel “Danny” Bannon (played by Julian Dennison), who are both juniors (16 or 17 years old) at the same high school. Eli and Danny share a passion for pop, rock and electronica music, so expect to hear a lot of songs that were mainstream hits in the 1990s, such as Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” and Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.”
Cliché #2: The geeky protagonist has a secret crush on a pretty and popular student, who already has another love interest. In “Y2K,” the characters who are the couple in this love triangle are Laura (played by Rachel Zegler) and Soccer Chris (played by the Kid Laroi), who are supposed to be the “it couple” of the school. Chris (who is called “Soccer Chris” because he’s a star on the school’s soccer team) is predictably an arrogant jerk, while Laura is predictably nice to everyone. It’s all a movie contrivance for audiences to root against Chris and root for underdog Eli to get together with Laura.
Cliché #3: The protagonist and his sidekick are bullied by other students. In “Y2K,” the school bullies are a bunch of stoners who listen to hard rock/heavy metal. They include a loudmouth leader named Farkas (played by Eduardo Franco) and an androgynous follower named Ash (played by Lachlan Watson), who is an aspiring filmmaker and an avid fan of rock band Limp Bizkit. Ash constantly carries a portable video camera, which becomes a source of contention later in the movie.
And here comes another teen horror movie cliché: The teen house party that goes horribly wrong. “Y2K” begins on December 31, 1999, when Eli and Danny plan to crash an unsupervised house party held at Chris’ house. Eli, who is an only child, lives with his parents Robin (played by Alicia Silverstone) and Howard (played by Tim Heidecker), who are in the movie for less than 10 minutes. Eli gets embarrassed and uncomfortable when his parents reminisce about how Robin taught Howard how to French kiss during the couple’s college romance.
Even though Eli and Danny are best friends, Eli is still hurt by something cruel that Danny did to Eli: In a desperate attempt to get attention from the “cool kids,” Danny told a lie to other students that Eli drank Danny’s urine. Danny told Eli that he was sorry for fabricating this disgustng story, but Eli is still being bullied over this lie. It’s a sore spot in the otherwise solid friendship of Danny and Eli.
Before Eli and Danny go to the house party, they visit their older friend Garret (played by Mooney), who is a clerk at their favorite video store. Garret openly abuses drugs (he has a fondness for marijuana and psychedelics) and is a walking stereotype of a spaced-out weirdo. Garret is harmless, but “Y2K” viewers have to sit through many bad jokes that Garret tells in this movie. Danny smokes some marijuana with Garret in the video store’s storage/employee room, while Eli declines the offer to smoke and only seems interested in drinking alcohol.
At the house party, many of the teens are aware of the Y2K scare but are unconcerned about it. Danny tries to liven things up by playing a homemade CD of his favorite songs and dancng to the music. Danny’s fun-loving personality attracts the attention of a pretty girl named Madison (played by Ellie Ricker), and it doesn’t take long before Danny and Madison start kissing each other. Eli somewhat mopes around and tries not to notice how the relationship between Laura and Chris is still going strong. Chris has figured out that Eli has a crush on Laura and angrily tells Eli to not make any moves on Laura because “you’re a dud.”
As the clock strikes midnight for January 1, 2000, all hell breaks loose in the house. Machines and gadgets—such as a microwave oven, a toy jeep and a blender—suddenly turn deadly. This review won’t go into too many details about who gets killed and who survives. However, it’s enough to say that there’s a “chief villain” machine that can best be described as looking like the original “Lost in Space” robot, with a computer monitor for a head.
Some of the teens escape from Chris’ house, including Eli, Laura, Ash and an aspiring rapper named CJ (played Daniel Zolghadri), who says he’s in a hip-hop group called Prophets of Intelligence. And you know what that means: Expect to see a scene in “Y2K” of CJ and his horrible rapping.
The teens spend most of their time outside, trying to hide from the chief villain robot and other deadly machines that could be on the loose. The teens bicker over things such as whether or not Ash’s portable video camera will turn against them as a weapon. And then, they encounter Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst (who plays a version of himself) hiding somewhere by himself, and “Y2K” continues its downward spiral into stupidity and plot holes.
During all of this chaos, the teens don’t think about seeing if they get help from authorities. They also don’t try to get in touch with their parents or other family members. Is it because there’s no electricity or phone communications during this apocalypse? No, because a pivotal scene in the movie shows someone being able to easily use the Internet on a desktop computer. Remember, this movie takes place during a time when accessing the Internet was done mostly by dial-up phone connections.
Because “Y2K” is partially a tribute to Limp Bizkit (Ash’s devotion to the band is a huge part of Ash’s character), it should come as no surprise that Durst performs Limp Bizkit songs from the late 1990s, such as “Break Stuff ” and Limp Bizkit’s cover version of George Michael’s “Faith.” These performance scenes will no doubt have “Y2K” viewers rolling their eyes at the cheesiness of how these scenes are staged. Everything looks forced and phony.
The cast members perform adequately, but the “Y2K” screenplay is so relentlessly sloppy and moronic, there’s almost no suspense or real amusing moments. “Y2K” also has some empty preaching about the dangers of becoming addicted to electronic devices/machines. If this “Y2K” movie were a computer, it would be a computer afflicted with a bug that causes it to repeatedly malfunction.
A24 released “Y2K” in U.S. cinemas on December 6, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 24, 2024.
