Like most people my age, I was only a couple of weeks old when society entered the 21st Century. It’s weird looking back at the Y2K Scare and seeing that it never came true. I’m sure people jokingly ponder what life would be like for humanity if the machines and the internet broke. The thought of it has never truly gone away, especially today, with social media playing a big part in our everyday lives and AI becoming increasingly popular. SNL alum Kyle Mooney puts that ‘what if’ question into our brains with his directorial debut Y2K.

Y2K arrives with a premise that could have been both nostalgic and thrilling, tapping into the turn-of-the-millennium paranoia that gripped the world in 1999. The idea of dramatizing—or satirizing—the chaos surrounding the "millennium bug" seemed like fertile ground for a unique blend of comedy and action. Unfortunately, the film fails to capitalize on its concept, delivering a disjointed and lackluster experience. One upside that attempts to balance out this misstep is the social commentary that resonates in 2024. With AI being on the rise, an angle preaches that society must be careful and not let the internet and machines consume us.

The movie’s setup is promising enough. Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, the plot centers around Eli and Danny, two high schoolers navigating the fallout of a catastrophic tech meltdown caused by the infamous Y2K bug with Eli, his crush, and a group of stoners. The potential for absurd scenarios and quirky character dynamics results in Y2K stumbling in its execution. The humor leans heavily on late ‘90s clichés, including outdated references and slapstick gags that rarely land. Mooney and Evan Winter’s script makes the nostalgia factor more like a crutch. Even Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst playing himself felt like a dull callback as he tried to play into the seasoned veteran troupe of apocalypse movies.

There’s also the fact that Y2K is billed as a horror comedy but leans too much on the comedy side. It intends to be like Scream, but it turns out to be a lesser version of a Seth Rogen comedy (Superbad, This is the End). If you’re going to do a horror comedy, at least throw in jumpscares to balance out the jokes, something this movie doesn’t toy with that one bit.

The characters are another weak point. Jaeden Martell plays Eli and feels flat in the role. He fits the dorky hero archetype, but it’s hard to see him nowadays as anyone other than an alternate version of Bill Denbrough from It. Even though she plays it safe, Rachel Zegler makes a turn as Laura, Eli’s love interest. From what I’ve seen so far from her, she has risk-taking roles in West Side Story and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but here in Y2K, she’s standing still. Everyone else except Julian Dennison and Mason Gooding seems to be typecasted in their respective parts. Dennison brings life to this movie with comedic charms, even if it lasts only a little bit of its 90-minute runtime.

The special effects are adequate for the film's needs but lack the polish or creativity to leave a lasting impression. The design of the, let’s call, machine monsters looks impressive, but everything else falters. I kid you not; there’s a character death in the movie that involves a decapitation where the character’s head rolls over to other survivors, and you can tell the head is fake to the point where you can’t help but cringe.

Aside from the effects, the cinematography isn’t remarkable. Has it become a thing for a movie set in the 90s to have at least two scenes shot from a handheld camera a character is holding? It’s been seen in films like Mid90s and American Beauty, and it’s starting to feel stale. I understand that having a camera everywhere you go was a common thing from that decade, but having a cut to said camera’s perspective should only be done if the moment calls for it and not for the sake of looking cool.

Where Y2K truly disappoints, though, is in its missed opportunity to explore deeper themes. The Millennium Bug was a moment in history fraught with real anxiety about technology’s role in our lives, and the movie could have used its premise to say something meaningful about our fears, reliance on tech, or even the absurdity of millennial doomsday predictions. Instead, it settles for surface-level laughs and predictable plot points.

In the end, Y2K is not a total disaster, but it’s far from the must-watch experience its concept promised. For a movie about the chaos of technology, it ironically feels outdated and uninspired—a relic of the very era it seeks to lampoon. Though I guess every decade needs to have some sort of movie that is a nostalgia trip, the 90s finds that here. However, like Tamagotchis and spiked hair, Y2K will be forgotten in time as another rough A24 joint.

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