Y2K: Sorry To Party Poop Like It’s 1999, But Y2K Ain’t Lit
By Chris Knight
Rating: D+
A comedy like this only comes along once in a thousand years. Alas, that might be about 976 years too often for Y2K, set in those long-ago days of dial-up internet and video stores. It tries to mine humour and a bit of horror from the era but fails to make much of an impact in either genre.
On paper, it looks promising enough. It was co-written and directed by Kyle Mooney, who also plays a middling role as a stoner video store clerk, and whose history on Saturday Night Live proves he knows how to be funny.
But there’s just not enough in the script, which merely imagines that on the fateful calendrical rollover night of December 31, 1999, everything containing a microchip turns evil. Yes, dishwashers too.
Jaeden Martell stars as Eli, a high school student who, like every straight boy of that era (and all the others) just wants to kiss a girl. New Year’s Eve might be his best shot but Laura (Rachel Zegler), though broken up with her boyfriend, isn’t broken up enough to want to smooch someone else. And in any case, by about five minutes past midnight, there’s too much end-of-the-world stuff going on to worry about much else.
Martell looks a little like a young Daniel Radcliffe (or an even younger Paul Bettany) but his touchstone in Y2K seems to be young Michael J. Fox, because he delivers just about every line like he’s Marty McFly. He’s matched with New Zealand actor Julian Dennison (thankfully keeping his Kiwi accent) as his best bud Danny. When the tech turns, they join forces with Laura to fight back against the machines.
There’s an odd disconnect with some of the film’s pop culture references. We get some more-or-less contemporary songs such as “Tubthumping” and “Praise You,” but did none of these young people see The Blair Witch Project or The Matrix in cinemas that year? Or, I don’t know, The Phantom Menace? The one big movie reference in Y2K is when our heroes rent 1994’s Junior, the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant.
I wanted to like Y2K, if only to add it to my list of great three-letter movies, alongside Ran, Her, Kes, Big and of course JFK and UHF. Oh, and Elf. But it’s probably not even up there with Y2K or Y2K, a pair of forgotten movies from 1999 in which (in one) a military team must locate an errant nuclear warhead before the Y2K bug causes it to launch and (in the other) a computer wiz tries to stop a nuclear plant from going critical on the big night.
Nukes were big back then. But at least those two had the excuse of tapping into the zeitgeist. There’s little excuse in 2024 for Y2K. Give it another nine- and three-quarter centuries, I say.
Y2K. Directed by Kyle Mooney. Starring Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, and Julian Dennison. In theatres December 6.