Endearing Then Glitchy ‘Y2K’ Runs Out of Comedic Bandwidth

Coming off his little-seen but largely effective feature debut Brigsby Bear, SNL alum Kyle Mooney’s sophomore feature attempts to mash up Superbad and This is the End in an apocalyptic teen comedy that fails to fully connect. Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison star as Eli and Danny, two unpopular best friends on a quest to kiss girls, and feel boobs, and stuff. After a few shots to steel their courage, the dorky but sweet pair head to the kickback at Soccer Chris’ spot, where Eli’s longtime crush Laura (Rachel Zegler) is recovering from her recent breakup. Part virginity-losing quest, part end-of-the-world action-comedy, Y2K presupposes a revisionist past where all the Y2K fear-mongering was not, in fact, misplaced. The moment the clock strikes midnight in the year 2000, the electronics throughout Chris’ house, tethered together into an apocalypse-minded singularity, band together to attack and subjugate humanity. As is often the case with high-concept comedies, it’s funny until it’s not.

The main gang quickly establishes chemistry, Martell and Dennison’s oppositional energy ping-pongs off each other to immediately establish an endearing vibe. Zegler is a welcome addition, playing a “cool girl with depth”—and while her character is thinly written, the actress herself pops off the screen, proving her star power even in a role unlikely to grant her greater opportunities. Mooney rounds out the ensemble with a collection of other reasonably funny faces, including Lachlan Watson, Daniel Zolghadri, Mason Gooding, and Eduardo Franco. However, he saves the dumbest—and therefore funniest—character for himself: Garrett, a stoner-zen video store clerk with a penchant for “deep thoughts” about innocuous everyday things. A moment where Garrett switches out his work Birks for his lounging Birks is the film’s peak comedic moments, earning this critic’s heartiest laugh.

The boot-up phase of Y2K works well enough, even if the entire early plot is a near direct copy-paste of Superbad. Mooney leans into the late-90s, early-2000s nostalgia hard, installing a sinister collective of Now That’s What I Call Music!-style hits that almost always effectively punch up any gag. But like an algorithm that’s become corrupted, Mooney’s script makes the unfortunate calculation to kill off its funniest characters way too early on, stranding audiences to surf through a comedy with progressively fewer laughs that’s steadily revolving more around its half-baked plot. By the time Fred Durst shows up to save a school through the power of a hit George Michael song, Y2K is way more cringe than it is cool.

Ultimately, Mooney has simply failed to debug the final product. Even at a mere 80ish minutes, it starts to drag once the world starts to go sideways. There’s a stagger-step quality to its momentum, where the transitions between scenes and gags are rather jagged and jarring. It just feels incomplete; first-drafty. What starts as an endearing and funny riff on a familiar premise succumbs to a full system crash; Mooney’s comedic efforts ushering in the new millennium with more eye-rolling errorcore than effective programming.

CONCLUSION: Kyle Mooney’s ‘Y2K’ offers an intriguing-enough – if ridiculous – premise and moments of charm but falters under the weight of its undercooked plot and uneven comedic execution. Despite some standout performances and fun nods to late-90s nostalgia, the film’s laughs dwindle as its story spirals, leaving viewers with a comedy that feels more like a glitch than a breakthrough.