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[For the full experience, pretend you’re reading this review on a Nokia phone screen that’s the size of two stamps.]
1999 was a banner year for social and pop culture WTF-ery — from virtual pets and baggy clothing to Woodstock ’99 and Total Request Live — and the pot of golden chaos waiting at the end of that computer-generated rainbow was the hypothetical civilization-crushing threat of Y2K. The once ever-present topic immediately turned into a sour punchline by the afternoon of January 1, 2000, and spent the past 25 years as a quaint, increasingly forgettable cautionary tale about fear-mongering media. Until now… or then? Until now-then, now.
Y2K
Release Date: December 6, 2024
Directed By: Kyle Mooney
Written By: Kyle Mooney and Evan Winter
Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Daniel Zolghadri, Julian Dennison, Lachlan Watson, Fred Durst, Kyle Mooney
Rating: Rated R for bloody violence, strong sexual content/nudity, pervasive language, and teen drug and alcohol use.
Runtime: 93 minutes
Y2K: Release Date, Cast And Other Things We Know So Far About The A24 Comedy
The alpha-numeric oddity can forever live on in greater infamy thanks to the latest cinematic achievement from Saturday Night Live vet Kyle Mooney, the teen horror-comedy Y2K. As opposed to a story drafted from real life, this movie hangs on the high-concept premise of “What if Y2K was real and was far more chaotic and unpredictable than expected?” And when the shit hits the fan in this movie, you can be most assured that the fan will hit the shit right back at you.
Jaeden Martell and Deadpool 2 fan fave Julian Dennison respectively portray the buttoned-up Eli and his more boisterous bestie Danny – an ostracized high school duo that makes the fateful choice to attend a raucous house party. Think Superbad without the overbearing horniness. (Jonah Hill is a producer.) Eli dreams of getting cozy with popular kid Laura (Rachel Zegler), while Danny just wants to let loose, even if it means getting hazed by resident aggro-stoners Farkas (Eduardo Franco) and Ash (Lachlan Watson). As cartoonish as characters can get, Martell grounds the emotional core with his inherent vulnerability an understated performance.
Y2K‘s supporting cast is equally impressive and game to live it up in this timeline that preceded many of the actors’ births. The most prominent of the bunch is Eighth Grade‘s Daniel Zolghadri as CJ, an underground rap-loving pothead. And then we have Aussie rapper The Kid Laroi, the Scream franchise’s Mason Gooding, alt-comedy mastermind Tim Heidecker, and ’90s queen Alicia Silverstone. Perhaps the one throwback element Y2K lacks, presumably due to budgetary reasons, is a laundry list of cameos from heartthrobs like Mario Lopez and Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
Y2K is a 1999 time capsule for very specific kinds of freaks and geeks.
Though I might not be so open about outing my age in regards to most movies’ plots, I feel an unignorable need to point out that I was the same age Y2K‘s characters on New Year’s Eve 1999, and was very much a JNCOs-wearing, metalhead who foolishly guzzled straight liquor without foresight. If it wasn’t for all the excellent splat-stick deaths and general sense of mayhem, I could buy into the false memory of having been at this very party when I was in high school.
Screenwriters Kyle Mooney and Evan Winter were inspired by movies like The Faculty and Can’t Hardly Wait, and Y2K is a pretty perfect melding of the two, but with the spotlight shifting away from the usual Type-A personalities and focusing squarely on kids living in the margins. Though Rachel Zegler’s Laura is technically one of the “cool” kids, she’s revealed to have her own geeky interests that are required for survival.
This is a movie that lovingly references Del the Funky Homosapien while using an Eminem comparison as a diss. And one where Lachlan Watson goes from wearing a Korn T-shirt to a Slipknot T-shirt, and where one of the biggest side characters is literally Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst. Admittedly, the movie’s weakest moments involve these outsiders still arguing about interests and status, even beyond the point when they should all be getting along. But I guess that’s just real life.
Unlike a lot of horror-comedies, Y2K doesn’t lose the laughs when the plot gets haywire (and introduces Fred Durst).
Yes, to address the chocolate-starfish referencing elephant in the room, Fred Durst isn’t just a Y2K novelty, but is a legitimate catalyst of sorts within this story of technology run amok. I can think of a million ways where this could have come across as awkward stunt casting, from making him appear 25 years younger to leaning so hard into his existence as a polarizing celebrity. (Durst himself pushed for Mooney and Winter to go as harsh as possible with the Limp Bizkit roasts.) Not only does it work, however, but Durst factors squarely intoY2K maintaining a near-perfect horror-comedy balance.
It’s too often in the case in the sub-genre that films are front-loaded with laughs so that plot mechanics can collide and close out in the third act. Yet Y2K continues going hard on sight gags, youthful ribbing, and apocalyptic weirdness up to and through the end credits. It definitely helps that the sentient technology at the film’s hardware-encrusted heart is hilariously absurd in and of itself, with just about every sincerely dramatic moment successfully undercut with a big laugh.
Like most things to 16-year-olds, life is only extremely hyper-serious until it’s not, and then it is again. Which isn’t to say that every single joke and heightened dramatic moment hits as hard as the best ones do. There’s a curve at play here that’s shaped less like a bell than the Taco Bell chihuahua.
Kyle Mooney not only excels behind the scenes, but also plays the funniest character in the movie.
Having co-written the underrated 2017 comedy Brigsby Bear and co-created more ’90s throwback bliss with Netflix’s Saturday Morning All-Star Hits!, Kyle Mooney put all of his talents and know-how on display with Y2K, and it looks and feels like a hidden treasure one would find on a video rental store’s shelf in 1999. Or perhaps even better than what a movie of this size would have looked like. Mooney managed to land The Matrix and Clueless cinematographer Bill Pope, and it shows.
But beyond all the written and directed magnificence, Kyle Mooney pulls off a cinematic hat trick by also playing the movie’s most jocular and farcical character, the video store employee Garrett. Perhaps better known as “the white guy with dreads,” Garrett is the resident vibe-setter whose aura is made up entirely of weed smoke. And not only is every inane line he says funny as all hell, but his entire look is so ridiculous that even his smiling reaction shots work as punchlines.
Not for nothing, Mooney and Evan Winter also deserve props for delivering a movie set in 1999 that is gloriously free from all the problematic insults and discourse of the time, which will no doubt help the longevity of its cult status.
Y2K no doubt works best for viewers like me whose lives ran somewhat parallel to the film’s characters, but is universal enough to still earn laughs and wide-eyed shock from audiences who were teenagers long before or long after its 1999 setting. It’s not as if the entire decade hasn’t already been relived and dissected many times over in the internet age. But nothing makes me want to actually go back in time to that point like Y2K does, even if it’s only for 15 minutes or so until [insert overplayed ’90s jam here] reminds me why Spotify playlists are so much more functional than mix CDs.