Time Bomb Y2K

"Time Bomb," marketed as a documentary chronicling the infamous millennium bug, falls short of its potential to create a captivating time capsule. The film primarily relies on a compilation of old news articles, offering a montage of historical moments without delving into the depth needed to provide a meaningful perspective on the Y2K phenomenon.

One of the film's major drawbacks is its brevity, featuring only fleeting 15-second interviews with industry titans like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. These brief snippets fail to offer substantial insights or reflections on the challenges and fears surrounding the Y2K bug. It leaves viewers yearning for a more in-depth exploration of the thoughts and strategies of these influential figures during that pivotal time.

While the idea of using archival footage to revisit the turn of the millennium is intriguing, "Time Bomb" lacks the narrative cohesion necessary to tie these disparate clips together effectively. The disjointed nature of the film leaves audiences with a sense of missed opportunity, as it neglects to weave a compelling story around the Y2K bug and its impact on society.

Moreover, the documentary's overall uneventful quality mirrors the anti-climactic nature of the Y2K bug itself. The film fails to capture the tension and anticipation that characterized the lead-up to the year 2000. Instead of offering a nuanced exploration of the social and technological landscape of that time, "Time Bomb" merely scratches the surface with a superficial montage of historical snippets.

Ultimately, "Time Bomb" disappoints as a documentary that could have served as a valuable time capsule for future generations. Its lack of depth and failure to provide a comprehensive understanding of the Y2K era make it a poor recommendation for anyone seeking a meaningful insight into the turn of the millennium and the challenges some of us lived through.

I feel slightly more confidant that I can relate this time to my daughter (who is older than I was at that time), and speak of more minute details. The good aspects of people uniting and a pre-9/11 world being so happy even when scared brings a little more joy than I had before watching this. It's incredible to see some of the foreshadowing of the world during this, and I am glad that the makers of this didn't focus on those. They let them be little cameos. In fact, I would have truly loved to see an ending where they showed the twin towers still erect. No words said about one year, nine months, and ten days from that moment. Just a silhouette. A reminder that worry is just imagination used incorrectly.

Not a bold statement from a person typing to many other people out there that may happen upon my review, but I was there. I was a ripe sixteen when the ball dropped, and I was very much up to zero good. However, this movie does a great job of going a few years before that very not fateful day. I was old enough to be aware, but young enough to not exactly know who Jager or Kostinen were. I probably saw their faces dozens or hundreds of times, but they didn't ring any bells while watching this film. All that said, bringing back up slight moments of my teenaged memory helped remind me of the fuss that this was.

6.8 stars is accurate.

A nice time capsule to show what it was like at the turn of the millennium. A good demonstration of how crazy people can get, but also how people can come together and solve a massive problem, by listening to the people who know what they are talking about and not the people in the fringes. Seems more important now than ever.

The documentary is just made from archive footage and doesn't really talk about the bug itself that much. But does show the world of 20 odd years ago and paints a picture of the optimism and panic that surrounded the turn of the millennium.

Gave a nice nostalgic watch to a time that seems like yesterday in my brain.

This documentary is nicely done, but not perfect. It could easily have been three to five minutes shorter, which would have helped with the pacing. Nevertheless, this is an interesting presentation of archival footage.

I like the way this film covers optimists, realists, and pessimistic survivalists. As someone who lived through this, I can tell you there was a LOT of hype back then. Scaremongers selling books were saying things like freeway accidents would occur as power brakes failed at the stroke of midnight. These sorts of claims were laughable of course -- no engineer is going to increase his workload by making systems more complex than needed -- especially when the system MUST be reliable. Why on earth would a power braking system need to know the time and date? It's ridiculous.

As the New Year came and went, the film shifted into covering some interesting and (mostly) uplifting thoughts about global connectivity and the uncertainty and possibilities of the new Millennium.

While not highly structured, this documentary has a straightforward (linear) time-flow, a decent cross-section of opinions, a low-key tone, and a good ending that raises questions about the future. I would have changed a few things, but not much, so I'm *tempted* to give it seven stars. HOWEVER, the film did NOT excite me, and I doubt it will be of great interest to the average viewer. So I think a "proper" rating, considering the big picture, is probably five (5) stars, which is also an accurate reflection of the entertainment value I received.

I lived through this, and, other than some software patches that were needed, it was much ado about something that could be fixed easily enough. They are showing the fringes of people that let themselves be swayed by doomsday messages. Most people that I knew at the time weren't too concerned. They knew nothing catastrophic would happen and they knew the software patches were being handled. Y2K was akin to the Mayan Calendar scare of 2012. You either believed it and waited for the end or you went on with your life as usual because you knew it was the media overblown fear mongering pushing the doom and gloom. It isn't very accurate, but it's not entirely wrong.