Y2K review – as throwaway as a killer Tamagotchi

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Kyle Mooney took it upon himself to lean into a feeling of kitsch nostalgia which we, as viewers, so desperately craved. Within the first minutes of his directorial debut, Y2K, a massive boxy AIO computer fills the screen and buffers onto a glitchy video of a Bill Clinton speech. The cultural references don’t stop there: there’s figurines from That 70s Show, DVD stores, The Pam and Tommy tape, a rain stick (remember those?), and premillennial goddess Alicia Silverstone tossed at the screen.

Story wise, the film sees high school outcasts Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) deciding to have a quiet night in on New Year’s Eve 1999; they have no plans other than to talk about hot girls in their grade, play video games and watch a movie. In a drunken haze, they end up crashing a party hosted by ‘Soccer’ Chris, played by The Kid Laroi. While there, Eli attempts to hang out with his crush, It girl Laura (Rachel Zegler), who is secretly a computer coding genius.

Suddenly, the power cuts and all electronic devices start to rumble, gearing up to kill and enslave humanity. The Y2K bug apocalypse, it transpires, is real and quickly spreads, forcing our plucky partygoers to seek shelter in the one place that doesn’t pose any threats: a stoner hang-out with no electronics other than fairy lights.

There’s a fun character dynamic in these early scenes, as the nostalgia comes in from all sides, but things fall apart when the ensuing bloodbath arrives. At that point, the character development slowly comes to a close, and the bodies start to pile up in a very generic horror fashion, killing off certain key players that could have kept the film running at the speed at which it began.

What Y2K does nail, however, is the ’90s/2000s aesthetic created through production design, although it lacks in the costume department. Costume designer Katina Danabassis has worked on beautifully styled films such as Lady Bird and Past Lives, acknowledging that Y2K fashion has come back. Yet the costumes here feel like 2000s-inspired designs plucked off the rack of modern-day Urban Outfitters.

The last half isn’t all bad. The character of Garret, brought to life by Mooney himself, embodies the epitome of the drug-loving slacker, and a major cameo from an enduring ’90s rap-rock act keeps the remaining minutes interesting. Y2K is very bang on; the cultural references and tech paranoia are so overtly 2000s that it almost makes the film feel satirical. It’s not a bad movie, and it lives up to the standards that it sets itself, but it is as throwaway as a killer Tamagotchi.