On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Year's Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives when Y2K becomes a reality.
Director: Kyle Mooney
Cast: Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Rachel Zegler, Fred Durst, Alicia Silverstone, Kyle Mooney
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Rated R for bloody violence, strong sexual content/nudity, pervasive language, and teen drug and alcohol use.
Runtime: 1h 31m
Review:
Y2K has its moments as a Superbad meets This is the End meets Maximum Overdrive mash up but a shoddy script and inconsistent tone keep it from hitting the mark. Writer, director and actor, Kyle Mooney, throws every late 90's cliché he can think of at the screen with some working better than others as he sets up the basic premise. The nostalgia is fun for a bit but the story rush past basic characterization from the get go which leaves us with a cast of terribly generic characters that don't connect the way they are supposed to. There's a herky-jerky feel to the whole thing as it hits a handful of inspired comedic bits before grinding to a halt with randomly emotional moments. Its makes for a very strange flow that leaves you wishing Mooney had just gone all in on goofiness of the concept and fully embraced it. It's a shame since his cast is game for assorted wackiness thrown at them led by Jaeden Martell and Rachel Zegler. Martell brings a Crispin Glover's George McFly energy to his performance which is sort of fun but you wish the script had given him a bit more to work with. Zegler deals with a similar situation since she's not asked to do much outside of look the part of your typical high school IT girl. Martell and Zegler have some fun energy together onscreen too which the film never takes full advantage of. Julian Dennison is also good fun as Martell's character longtime friend but he's inexplicably taken off screen fairly early on. There is a rather fun sequence in the back end once a certain singer pops up onscreen which ends Y2K on a high note but that doesn't keep the whole thing from feeling like a missed opportunity.
C
