REVIEW: ‘Y2K’ Needs More Laughs to Fully Pull Off It’s Apocalyptic Comedy

Comedian, Kyle Mooney is making his directorial debut with the new apocalyptic horror-comedy, Y2K. Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, the movie follows best friends, Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison). Stereotypical nerds, the duo spends most of their time gaming, slowly downloading porn, and talking about their high school crushes. When they are invited to a New Year’s Eve party by Eli’s crush Laura (Rachel Zegler), they deem this as their chance to leave their nerdy personas behind and finally be seen as one of the cool kids. However, the threat of Y2K has other ideas. For when the clock strikes midnight, the pair and their classmates will find themselves running for their lives as the electronics have come to life. They will now need to find a way to stop the electronics before they take over the human race.

Mooney took the idea of what if the “year 2000 problem” really happened and turned it on its head. Instead of focusing on the collapse of the digital world and worldwide communications going dark, Mooney and co-writer, Evan Winter, decided to make the problem even more scary. They opted to bring the electronics to life and have them gone on a killing spree. As far as horror movies go, this one lacks the jump scares needed to really pull it off. The movie is gory, and does have some cringe worthy moments, but it won’t leave a last impression for horror fans. The same can be said for the comedy. It was there, but not with its leads. The comedy was made better by the movie’s secondary cast, including Mooney as stoner, home video store clerk, Garrett.

Mooney does though, manage to remind the audience, in every way possible, this movie takes place in the late 90s. From the choker around Zegler’s neck to the sounds of Limp Bizkit and dial -up internet access, there is no way the audience can forget when this movie is supposed to take place. Some of these choices really worked for the movie, others did not. Sometimes it felt like Mooney was shoving the 90s down the audiences’ throats rather than fully utilizing it as a secondary character. This may be due to his lack of directing experience, as this is his directorial debut. Whatever the reason may be, it was a little too much for me.

Martell and Dennison are everything you want as teens from the 90s. But it was the secondary characters that really stood out for me. Daniel Zolghadri (CJ), Lachlan Watson (Ash), Eduardo Franco (Farkas), and Mooney (Garrett) made this movie funny. Their characters were extremely out there, in the best way possible, and created the most comedic moments. It’s their characters that most resemble kids growing up in the 90s. Zegler does well as popular, computer geek, Laura, but her character gets lost when she appears in scenes with the secondary group.

Y2K isn’t going to win any awards, but it is a step in the right direction for Mooney. It is definitely not a movie I would recommend checking out in theaters, but if you enjoy apocalyptic horror-comedy movies, then check it would when it hits streaming in the New Year.

Grade: C