Y2K
Y2K
Starring Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Lachlan Watson
Directed by Kyle Mooney
It's New Year's Eve 1999, and dweebs Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) are planning on crashing the party of the school's popular jock so Eli could kiss the girl of his dreams, popular Laura (Rachel Zegler). As the clock strikes midnight, however, Eli is disheartened to see Laura kissing the popular boy, but things go from bad to worse when technology goes amok and starts killing the partygoers, sending Eli, Laura, Danny, and other survivors on a quest to stop technology from either enslaving the human race or eradicating them entirely.
Writer/director Kyle Mooney is best known for his "Saturday Night Live" performances where he lovingly roasts 90s culture, so it comes as no surprise his directorial debut would be a film that would define the decade - "Y2K." He does an okay job at showing the time, with numerous 90s references and throwbacks that I fondly remember because I was actually alive during that time, but overall there's a dull sense of boredom thrown in, like he was just writing stuff for the sake of writing and not offering anything deep or thoughtful in the delivery. The film could've been a satirical nod at technology, or a blistering study on how we treated tech during that time, but essentially all it is is a weak "Superbad" meets "Terminator" film that doesn't provide any fun characters nor big scares, and instead meanders its way to its unsatisfying conclusion.
It's your generic R-rated coming-of-age comedy where two outcasts try to make a name for themselves (heard this before?), while one pines for the popular girl because she talks to him over AIM, and the characterizations are as bland as you can get. Jaeden Martell plays Eli, the main geek, with such boredom that it seems that not even he wants to be a part of this project. "Deadpool 2" breakout Julian Dennison fares a bit better as the more outgoing Danny, but even he falls victim to the pitfalls of generic storytelling. Rachel Zegler's popular Laura is about the same as well, although she is also smart enough to understand technology, which comes in handy when they're trying to find a way to stop the technopocalypse.
The story itself seems destined for the big screen, and to its credit it does have a great scene when midnight strikes and technology turns - VHS tapes being shot out of VCRs, motorized toy cars igniting teens on fire, and a brutal Tamagotchi provides scares and laughter, but sadly it's only about a five minute stretch of film, with the rest of the runtime trying to make you think the story is smarter than it is.
Once the teens escape the party, the script is thrown out the window, as we're "treated" to the teens wandering through the woods, throwing out 90s quips, and circulating their dialogue over and over again - which is odd because it feels like the script itself was written by AI with a knowledge of 90s pop culture. The eventual plan itself doesn't make a lot of sense either, as it seems Mooney forgot what he was trying to accomplish in the first place. Technology is supposed to turn on its masters, but they sometimes do it and sometimes don't, and their plan is to either implant chips in the brains of humans to control them - or flat out kill them - with no rhyme or reason. There's no intense stakes, as when Eli, Lauren and the others infiltrate the robots' headquarters, their human victims just sort of exist there where they don't really seem to fear what's happening, and the robots kind of allow them free reign. It's incredibly frustrating because I wanted to like the film, but the comedy falls flat, the characters are even flatter, and the story is somehow even flatter than that.
The Score: D-
Comments
Post a Comment