REVIEW: ‘Y2K’ Is A Feature Length Skit

Kyle Mooney‘s directorial debut, Y2K, has the right ‘90s aesthetic. As the name says, Y2K takes place on the last night of 1999 during a New Year’s Eve party. Centered on two nobodies, Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison), the two high school juniors crash a party only to fight for their lives alongside people they’ve never really gotten along with. The movie starts off in the style of Can’t Hardly Wait until it morphs into something completely else entirely in a genre mash-up of comedy, sci-fi, and disaster once Y2K becomes a reality.

Written by Mooney and Evan Winter, the A24 film stars Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Jaeden Martell, Mason Gooding, Eduardo Franco, and Lachlan Watson as a group of survivors of a robot revolution. If you were making memories in 1999, then you remember the scare that was Y2K. It was the belief that because of having 000 computers and technology would fail. Planes would fall from the sky, bombs to go off, and the world would end. There were Nostradamus documentaries on the History Channel, and when the clock struck midnight, nothing happened.

In Y2k, something does happen. A pink toy jeep kills some teens, a Tomogatchi drills a hole in someone’s head, and the machines violently revolt in a way that, for the first act, absolutely thrills. The dedication to practical effects sets the film’s robot monstrosities apart. The humor they bring is the best the film has to offer (outside the magnetic Dennison).

When it comes to the plot, there isn’t much there. The characters only exist to deliver jokes and shotgun ‘90s references backed by a ‘90s-burned CD mix. The action is the star. The creative kills do more for the film than any relationship it tries to establish after the first act. This isn’t to say that the actors aren’t doing their best. Martell is infinitely endearing from start to finish with the right amount of awkwardness and competence. He carries the film even if his best friend, played by Dennison, delivers the film’s best musical moment with his rendition of Sisqo’s iconic “Thong Song.”

Since I have memories of Y2K, this movie should hit. Instead, the dialogue, premise, reveals, and twists are all vehicles to jampack as many references into 90 minutes as possible. While Totally Killer embodied its period aesthetic for the late ‘80s, Y2K is a shotgun spray at a wall of what Gen Z thinks the ‘90s were. Instead of embodying the time period, its humor, and its tropes, it’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. When the film tries to go into trashy joke territory, a 2024 sensibility undercuts them. These are most often delivered by Zegler’s Laura.

The start of the third act, the character reveal, and the subsequent need to break stuff is the shining moment of the film’s back half. But even with this musical icon, there isn’t too much to hold onto. The comedy could have been trashier, meaner, and dug into the time period, but instead it all feels empty. Absolutely chaotic, Y2K loses itself by trying to be everything at once and coming out manically muddled in the end.

The cast and its rapid-fire ‘90s references tailor themselves to the TikTok generation. However, the continued forcing of ‘90s humor undercut by 2024 sensibilities makes it completely not for me. The film is more annoying than entertaining. This hour-and-a-half runtime feels like three as Mooney’s SNL writing turns this feature film into one long skit.

When it comes down to it, Y2K will find its movie audience. For the Zoomers and tail-end millennials without concrete memories of the time to hold onto, Y2K is a movie that will capture what they idolize about the time period. It makes fun of it while bumping a fantastic soundtrack and that’s more than enough to win over people—just not me.

Y2K screened as a part of SXSW and is set for distribution by A24.