The countless barrage of horror movies in 2024 isn’t ending in December. Debut director Kyle Mooney, most identified for his work on SNL and Brigsby Bear, was lastly handed the reigns to direct. Y2K is about at a New 12 months’s eve get together in the course of the titular occasion the place the movie posits that the Y2K phenomena (which was half fable and half reality) leads to machines coming to life and beginning to brutally homicide folks. The countless barrage of cultural references solely compound the mediocre writing and enhancing, making for a spinoff and uninteresting movie.
Mooney is intent on letting the viewer know the movie takes place in 1999. Between the soundtrack, cultural references, and stunt castings, Y2K can’t say it didn’t ship on its promise of interval comedy. Nicely, maybe it doesn’t ship on the comedy, because it substitutes interval motifs for jokes various instances. In actual fact, an early scene options Mooney slicing between a number of social teams at a celebration, showcasing each stereotypical social group from the late 90s simply so the viewer has no misunderstanding in regards to the period by which the movie takes place. Characters all through the movie will randomly sing “Tubthumbing” or rap at one another horribly. Small doses of this would possibly work, however the practically steady assault of it grates shortly.
It additionally doesn’t assist that Y2K is a very edited movie. It barely makes an effort to arrange a narrative, with Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison starring because the stereotypical social wallflowers determined to have a New 12 months’s Eve kiss earlier than catastrophe strikes. The remaining hour of the movie is a collection of random scenes stacked on one another with little sense of plot development or that means. The movie’s lack of ability to arrange stakes or spacial continuity, and its awkwardly-timed comedy scenes lead to a clunker of a movie with little to get pleasure from or root for.
There are some admittedly amusing moments right here and there. The cameo casting of Alicia Silverstone and Tim Heidecker is amusing for his or her two scenes. And the consequences work by Weta Workshop in crafting collectively sensible robotic monsters must be given some credit score. There’s a throwback high quality to this facet of the movie that’s admittedly welcome.
However Mooney’s lack of expertise at directing is clear. His script is a meandering mess with shallow character arcs and a horribly uneven tone. The makes an attempt at each horror or drama really feel undercut by the movie’s fixed sense of irony. For a movie in regards to the Y2K occasion, you’d additionally don’t know what Y2K was until you might be already acquainted, because the film by no means bothers to elucidate it or present a lot rationalization for the villainous pressure or its origins. Not {that a} horror movie wants to elucidate issues in excruciating element, however right here it’s such an afterthought that you just really feel adrift watching the movie.
There have been nuggets of fine concepts right here. However Mooney wanted a surer hand to help in him within the route and enhancing to craft collectively a coherent movie. Y2K is sadly a deeply uninteresting viewing regardless of all its audacious occurrences. Sadly, the actual horror for these born after 1990 is the conclusion that interval movies at the moment are being made in regards to the decade by which they grew up.
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