Y2K

by Mike McGranaghan

Kyle Mooney has a specific kind of millennial humor that, frankly, this Gen X-er has never quite gotten. A lot of his work on Saturday Night Live involved skits designed to recreate the early days of the internet or other forms of ‘90s entertainment. There weren’t a lot of jokes, per se. The gag was how well the look and feel of the subject got captured. Mooney makes his directorial debut with Y2K, a horror-comedy that illustrates the primary limitation of his humor. The movie is only funny if you think it’s hilarious to sit through an hour-and-a-half of random 1990s references.

It's New Year’s Eve 1999, and high school pals Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) head out to a party, where the former hopes to connect with his crush Laura (Rachel Zegler). Seconds after the clock strikes midnight, electronic devices take on a life of their own, combining into Transformer-like robots that go on a murderous spree. The teens seek safety first, then a means of taking down the computer-driven predators.

Inexplicably, Y2K does nothing to address the uncertainty that beset the United States in the days leading up to January 1, 2000. We’d been reassured that everything would be okay after a rushed effort to write programs to prevent computers from becoming confused and crashing, but we didn’t know for sure what was going to happen. Would power grids shut down? Would bank accounts vanish? Would gas pumps stop working? There was a hint of paranoia lurking around the millennium that is only mentioned here in one or two throwaway lines. Failing to exploit that immediately sets the film off on the wrong foot, given that it envisions a worst-case scenario.

Beyond that, the screenplay by Mooney and Evan Winter strings together ‘90s pop culture references in hopes that doing so will illicit laughter. The movie has a Tamagotchi gag, humorous uses of Sisqo’s “Thong Song” and Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping,” an extended Fred Durst cameo, and much, much more. Those things should complement a story about the millennium sending the world into a tizzy, not be the driving force.

It really is not clear who or what Mooney is attempting to satirize here. Is he mocking the kids for whom computer-driven technology is becoming central to life? The tech companies who perhaps don’t understand what they’re unleashing? American society itself for becoming obsessed with potential Year 2000 calamities in the first place? Y2K never picks a definitive target, so its satire comes off as unfocused and, frankly, sort of desperate. By the time we finally get to the ending, which becomes a full-on cyber-battle, the picture seems to be grasping at straws.

Martell, Dennison, and Zegler are all likeable young performers who deserve material with some sting to it. Y2K is not that motion picture. But hey, Edwin McCain…Independence Day…blowing into a video game cartridge when it doesn’t work. Are you ROFL yet?

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