Y2K
*
Directed by Kyle Mooney.
Starring Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison.
Comedy, US, 92 minutes, Certificate 15.
Released in cinemas in the UK on March 21st by Universal Pictures
The 31st of December. If we were of age, there is a high chance we were all in some sort of altered state simultaneously celebrating the last day of the twentieth century and living in fear of the possible end of civilisation, all because some idiot back in the 60’s forgot to the numbers 1 and 9 in some bit of computer software and Hogmanay 1999 would roll back to 1900 causing unimaginable damage to society from which there was no return, oe something. Looking back now it seems more of a humorous bit of trivia that slots in beside tamagotchis and when The X-Files was still good and not an entirely plausible and existential threat that gave a boost to salesmen of the prepper variety.
Writer, director and co-star Kyle Mooney, a one time Saturday Night Live performer and writer, who has traded in late 20th century nostalgia before with the likes of BRIGSBY BEAR and his Netflix series SATURDAY MORNING ALL STAR HITS! decides to revisit what could have been the most cataclysmic night of all time in humorous what-if fashion, with every single machine on the planet turning against an unsuspecting human race once the clock strikes midnight. It is a premise already explored in The Simpsons in the Treehouse of Horror X episode. Where that vignette took around six minutes to deliver a gag filled take on how humanity would suffer in typically hilarious fashion this takes an hour and a half, minus the laughs.
Our protagonist at the heart of the societal collapse here is Jaeden Martell’s Eli, an awkward high schooler spending New Years Eve with best friend Danny, whose New Zealand accent fails to add any charm or humour to the stereotypical teen movie role of the foul-mouthed fat friend. Danny convinces Eli to crash a jock's New Years party in order to win the heart of his crush Laura, played by Rachel Zegler. Just as Eli’s heart is broken, the clock strikes midnight and everything with an on/off switch joins up, often literally, to slaughter anything with a pulse. Cue an escape into the night as Eli and Laura flee their technological overlords in this scary new world.
What could have been a fast, funny and bloody trip through a crazy aspect of nineties history is nothing but an unfunny slog that seems to have little interest in exploring its threadbare plot fully. Instead we get little more than recycled parts of pop culture that were not very good in the first place; Chumbawamba, Schwarzenneger’s JUNIOR and internet dial-up speeds. Aside from reminding you how poor that stuff was, Mooney only seems interested in saying “remember this?” and nothing else of note.
There are a couple of off-kilter gags that come out of nowhere that hit the funny bone and a surprising willingness to kill off characters that lend a slight touch of unpredictability to proceedings. The rest of the film however suggests that Mooney, as both director and performer, has little else to offer than empty nostalgia bait resulting in a comedy horror that fails on both fronts. The end result here is something that is more likely to fade into obscurity than a fondly remembered cult favourite.
Iain MacLeod