Y2K

Y2K tries to take the formula of popular teen comedies like 'Superbad' and wrap it around tech horror but it ultimately fails to give us anything but a mess. It relies hard on your knowledge and memories of Y2K, 1999/2000 trends in music, and low-budget horror films to carry the humor but its story falls apart halfway through. The 3rd act is a mess only saved by one of the most ridiculous cameos with jokes at their own expense.

In the end, Y2K can be funny with some laugh-out-loud moments, but most of those moments are at how ridiculous what just happened was. If you were a teen to 20 something in 1999/2000 you can find something to enjoy with the film but ultimately doesn't give enough to warrant another visit.

Brad: 5 Josh: 4.5-5 Final: 5.

Trailer looked awesome, but trailer makers know what they are doing! They sold it!

The filmmakers, failed. On every level.

This is such a bad film, I had to review. I've only come on here 4 or 5 times to review a film over 20+ years and review when a film is so bad, it deserves no recognition or success. It's just horrific.

No redeeming features at all. Terrible acting, terrible set pieces, poor direction and writing, and a woful silly story that could have been ace, had it been executed correctly. Kills were quick and also pointless, deaths not scary or gory, and so so painfully unfunny.

Also, Fred Durst. It's a no from me. Unsure who this is aimed at, but it's not anyone from 1970-2010.

Trash.

This could have been good. The concept is there, you have a cast that was willing to put themselves in goofy situations and obviously the budget to create something memorable. What went wrong? The limp direction and the forced screenplay.

Firstly, the acting is awful. Not because of the cast, but because the screenplay is written with so many hamfisted jokes thrown in that it gave the actors little room breathe, not to mention these are not traditionally comic actors. Felt bad for the leads, because I know they are capable of much more than this.

Secondly, the script needs more work. Nobody talked like this in the 90s. You got the references and the slang, but none of the delivery. Not a single bit of dialog felt natural to the scene. The comedy only works maybe a quarter of the time because the jokes are so sudden and forced.

Thirdly, where is the shock value? For a movie like this to work, there needed to be more shock. A bit more graphic violence, maybe a bit more nudity. Something to make me say "Whoa!". It felt tame for the subject matter and general feel of the film. Should've taken the murderous robot scheme further.

Overall, it was trash. Unbelievable, not funny and childish. I would only recommend watching it if it's free on streaming and you have absolutely nothing else to watch on a rainy afternoon.

1 brain implant out of 5.

This starts strong with its Y2K apocalypse party montage, but once that initial chaos settles, it's like watching a video freeze halfway through loading. By the end, i wondered, "am I supposed to be laughing, scared, or deeply invested in these cardboard cutouts?" I'm still not sure what tone they were going for...

The direction feels like they filmed half the scenes on a Tuesday and the other half months later, then tried to glue it all together with bad ADR. The high school drama is so shallow it makes Degrassi look like Breaking Bad. And the horror? Yeah.... It's a no for me. CGI blood everywhere, practical effects nowhere, and the little makeup they did bother with was giving Spirit Halloween clearance rack.

The comedy doesn't help much either. Most jokes are either so niche I felt like I needed a late-90s pop culture PhD or just plain bad. I laughed a few times, but not usually with the movie-definitely at it. And every time it tried to get serious it flopped. It's like the movie said, "Let's give them whiplash" and went full Don't Look Up tonal chaos, minus the preachy metaphors.

To be fair, there are worse sc-fi horror movies out this year (AfrAId, anyone? Just me?), and worse comedies, too. But Y2K is just there. It's not a full meltdown like reviews may have you believe-it's more like a frozen screen and the mouse is stuck spinning. Fun to think about, frustrating to sit through.

It's hard to tell exactly where this movie goes wrong. Maybe it's that the beginning doesn't get you firmly enough on the leads side. Could have used better humor to do that, or maybe some more relatable and less cliched characterization.

Whatever it is, when this movie started leaning into its emotional moments, and you can tell it's trying because of the music and style, it ended up alienating me because I didn't feel what it was trying to make me feel. And that continued right up thru the end of the movie.

I'd say about half the humor landed for me, but that's not always the filmmakers fault.

Most of the characters felt very stereotypical, and felt like they were trying to be brought to life for us, by just a couple extra zany details, instead anything that felt authentic.

What it felt like, Kyle Mooney and Evan Winter forgive me if this wrong, is that money got behind this movie too early, or too quickly, and the script didn't make it past a first draft. Maybe, too, all the comedy was written in, and not improvised in the way that great comedy movies rely on for the real snappy humor that pops. And, I think in Editting they were giving the humor too much of a pause; too much space for what should have been audience laughter, in a way that also alienated me and probably others. And most of the humor was pretty toothless as well, especially when you compare it to the movies it's drawing influence from.

So unfortunately this movie just feels mediocre; lazily trying to be heartfelt; I wish I had felt toward it what the filmmakers clearly thought I'd feel.