Y2K review
Nostalgia can only get you so far.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Y2K
Directed by Kyle Mooney
Written by Kyle Mooney and Evan Winter
Starring Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Rachel Zegler, Alicia Silverstone, Kyle Mooney, Mason Gooding and Fred Durst
Y2K Review
Nostalgia can only get you so far. That was the little blurb I wrote above this review. It’s true…and certainly applicable to Y2K…but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s just a blurb, after all. A teaser to set the stage for what you’ll read in the full review. An appetite to whet your appetite for the meal that’s to come. I don’t know why I’m explaining the point of the opening blurb right now. I suppose I felt the need to inject a little fun into this review since you won’t be getting nearly as much as you’d like from the movie Y2K.
Co-writer/director Kyle Mooney previously co-wrote (and starred in) a wonderful little movie called Brigsby Bear. It’s been seven years since then…and the announcement of a new feature, produced by the reliable A24, which appears to be a new riff on Maximum Overdrive sounded like it had the makings of a good one. It’s…fine. There are some inspired moments here and there. Some decent character moments. And not nearly enough to laugh about. If you are in the mood for some turn of the century nostalgia, however…Y2K has all that you can stand.
The Y2K bug has turned computers against mankind. Anything with a computer chip becomes a deadly foe as the CPUs build themselves weapon toting bodies our of the technology around them. Friends Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) finally took the chance to step out of their shells only to find themselves in the middle of an apocalypse. Eli’s crush, the popular Laura (Rachel Zegler), joins the quest for survival in hopes of using her computer prowess to turn the tables on the uprising.
Let’s start with what works in Y2K…as we usually do. The first act of the movie does a good job establishing its characters. Eli and Danny have Superbad vibes. The lovable losers desperate to change their fortunes. Laura runs in a circle considered far out of Eli’s league…but always has time for a friendly word. Unfortunately for Eli, she is in the minority. He hopes that New Year’s Eve can provide the moment to make his move…only to be warned by someone in Laura’s circle to keep his distance as he makes his own move. The stage is set for multiple familiar, but likable, story beats. Then Y2K destroys most of them in a few minutes of mayhem and carnage.
It’s a bold move. Just when you think you know what Y2K has in store…it zigs instead of zags. A lot of what has been built is unceremoniously discarded when the machines rise. This isn’t a coming-of-age buddy comedy. Unfortunately, it isn’t much of a comedy at all. Save for a few things that land, usually involving an unexpected death, Y2K goes long stretches without evoking so much as a smile. It’s surprising coming from comedy stalwart Mooney. Maximum Overdrive’s laughs may have been unintentional…but there were more of them.
Things pick up in that department a bit in the final act of the movie. Fred Durst pops up as himself…and he’s game for anything the story wants him to do. It’s emblematic of the biggest issue that Y2K suffers from, however. You had to be there. And you have to have a real fondness for the time. A time that, frankly, isn’t that ripe for observational humor. Yes…the internet ran slower, and computer graphics were rudimentary. I hope you find those things hysterical…because you’re going to get a lot of them.
As bold as the move is to upset the apple cart as the story breaks into act two (along with the best scene in the movie as bodies drop left and right) the rest of Y2K refuses to keep pact. It gets, literally, lost in the woods for most of act two. Characters become less interesting the more screen time they receive. A few moments of violence provide momentary sparks that the screenplay never let catch fire. If Durst didn’t show up to poke fun at himself…the whole thing would collapse under the weight of its too-serious tone.
The computers’ plot is downright silly. Which is fine…it’s a movie about sentient killer robots. It seems to have been reverse engineered from the resolution backwards. Laura’s a hacking genius, you see. Her abilities become the survivors’ best chance at taking down their robot adversaries. Have to leave a hole in the death star for Luke to shoot through or you don’t have an ending. By the time Y2K plays its final hand…hope that you are as distracted by Fred Durst singing Faith as the characters in the movie are. In fairness, it is entertaining. Unfortunately, it’s about as entertaining as Y2K gets.
Scare Value
Y2K is a disappointment. It disappoints as both a follow up to Brigsby Bear and a fresh take on Maximum Overdrive. In a way, that disappointment is the most turn of the century thing about Y2K. If you really loved hat point in time…you’ll be treated to a soundtrack full of period specific songs…and visual gags that don’t land like the plethora of movies set in the 80s do. If you lived through 1999/2000 the first time…you probably already knew it wasn’t anything worth revisiting.
2/5
Y2K Link
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