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Y2K kind of popped out of nowhere, I had heard about it, but not seen much advertising or trailers. “Why is that?” I pondered to myself. Ahh, it stars Rachel Zegler. They can’t do any publicity with her because, you know, she might talk and screw it up.
Y2K stars Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Daniel Zolghadri, Lachlan Watson, Kyle Mooney, Eduardo Franco, The Kid Laroi (yep, that’s his name), Alicia Silverstone, and Fred Durst, yes, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit.
The Story
I remember the real Y2K as if it was yesterday. At the end of 1999 everyone was worried that, when the computers went to 2000, they would go nuts. This is the story of this movie:
Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.
Two best mates, Eli (Martell) and Danny (Dennison) are going to kiss on New Year’s. Not each other, but Eli wants to kiss the most popular girl at school, Laura (Zegler). The first act of the movie is reminding you that it’s 1999.
At one point Eli rides past a house and the kids and parents are doing the Macarena in the driveway, which everyone did in 1999. There are more ‘memberberries than I could comfortably handle, to be honest. It’s 1999. I GET IT!
They go to a party, and at the stroke of midnight, a party guest gets killed by a ceiling fan. Then all hell breaks loose – in the space of a few seconds a killer robot turns up. I mean, literally, seconds. At the stroke of midnight, Y2K hits, and all machines are now capable of building flame-throwing killer robots.
The rest of the movie is about who lives and who dies and overthrowing the machines. Think Maximum Overdrive, but somehow more camp and stupid.
The Cast
Here is the main problem with this movie – I don’t like anyone. I mean, that’s true in real life, but I don’t like the people here in this movie either. Another of A24’s recent movies, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies suffered the same thing. The entire cast was a bunch of insufferable pricks that I wanted to die!
I will say that Martell is actually OK in this. Fine, he’s playing Bill from It again, but he’s fairly likable. The problem is everyone else.
Zegler (sigh) is just annoying. You know how you hate people like Kevin Spacy now? Because when you see him, you can’t help but think of what he’s like in real life? Zegler is the same, sure, she’s a very pretty girl, but I imagine that having a conversation with her would be like pulling teeth. She’s the kind of air-headed moron that makes TikTok so popular.
Then we have Dennison. Talk about a one-trick pony. His schtick is becoming very old, very fast. I liked him in The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, but since then he’s just the ‘fat kid from New Zealand’. That is his thing. He was the same in Deadpool 2, just the ‘fat kid from New Zealand’. At least with the size of him, I doubt he’ll be around much longer. He looks like he’s about a Twinky away from a heart attack.
The Miss-Cast
Then we have people who just should not be here at all. Franco, for example, is from Stranger Things with his stereotypical pot head persona. In Y2K he is exactly the same, but this time, he’s the bully. It just doesn’t work. Even giving him a haircut, or just putting his hair in a bun, would have made a difference.
Then there is a Fred Durst. He completely pops up, out of nowhere, and helps save the day. I have honestly no idea why he is in this movie. I imagine they were looking for someone to fill a slot. I then imagine that one of the interns mentioned their dad used to roadie for Limp Bizkit and that was that.
It’s not like he’s a bad actor, but he’s just not a needed actor in this movie.
Overall
One of the many issues with Y2K is that it’s just too camp and silly. I didn’t know what to expect from it but, as I said, a more camp and silly Maximum Overdrive was not the way to go. If you lean into the camp, you might have fun with it, but I’m a cynical old fart and just didn’t enjoy it.
To help the plot along, the killer robots have made an infomercial about what’s going on and their plans for global domination. It felt unneccesary but I’m overthinking a movie that really needed no thought at all.
It’s supposed to be a dark comedy, but the only time I found myself laughing was when Zegler gets covered in shit in a portable toilet. That made me smile, but I’m sure there was someone there to wipe it all off her, just like in real life.
Spoilers – as if that matters – but Zegler is the ‘computer hacker’ that saves the day by giving the robots a virus ripped straight off from Independence Day. They even reference this, so it’s not stealing, it’s homage.
Y2K is a non-entity of a movie. You might have fun with if you were drunk. I won’t be watching it again. It’s on VOD.
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