Y2K: A Review

A24 spends a 24-minute block of time of Y2K’s plot stuffing an obscene amount of 90’s

references to make certain you are aware of the time period. Every moment feels like that

meme of the dude with veins popping out of his bulging forehead with a look suggesting he’s

about to burst if he doesn’t tell you what’s on his mind.

It practically feels like a 90’s nostalgia

commercial that will end with a tour announcement of the top one hit wonders of that era. It sounds ridiculous until Fred Durst shows up and proves my point by quoting Limp Bizkit song lyrics and performing an acoustic, Limp Bizkit-style cover of George Michael’s “Faith;” this performance helps buy some time by distracting everyone long enough for our heroes to save

the day. I can’t get over the fact that the writer’s of the film botched an opportunity for Durst to say “Alright, keep it rollin’” by instead opting for “let’s break stuff” during a pivotal moment in the

plot.

We are also forced to believe that Eduardo Franco, our beloved Argyle from Stranger Things, is a teenage-macho-bully type; they could have easily written him as the aged-out high schooler stoner. Regardless, his death was top-notch comedy. Liz and I had to rewind it a few times so we could laugh again.

While the deaths are deliciously campy, the villain is a dud. It goes from everything electronic

becoming sentient, to one giant mecha monster. It would have served the movie better had they

gone with an evil Al Gore that decided to force the Y2K event after having lost the election to Bill

Clinton. His death could have been ambiguous enough for a sequel that involves him coming

back to seek revenge in the form of turbo-charged climate change caused by his documentary,

An Inconvenient Truth, that has subliminal messages that hypnotize the audience.

I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing their attempt at campy horror. It’s a nice change of pace to

watch a campy horror movie instead of something more serious and dramatic like Midsommar

(which is psychologically splendid). It’s just too bad that A24 went with Jonah Hill’s attempt at a

90’s campy horror version of Superbad with a sort of This Is The End doomsday plotline that

fails to capture the same comedic magic of either. Y2K fell just as flat as the prediction that the

Millennium would usher in the end of times once the clock struck midnight in 1999. This film

ended up being nothing more than a popcorn fart. Briefly noticeable but ultimately stinky.

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