Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.

‘Y2K’ is a science fiction comedy movie directed by Kyle Mooney, set at the very end of the 20^th century as there were genuine fears that the ‘millennium bug’ (or the ‘year 2000 problem’ as I believe it was more commonly known in the U.S.) was going to cause havoc with technology. For anyone younger than my generation, the thought of this will seem quite naïve and silly in hindsight, but it was a concern that was taken seriously by governments, technology companies and individuals – it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory. Of course it amounted to very little, but in ‘Y2K’ it amounts to a lot, and that forms the focus of Mooney’s movie as it follows a group of high school kids who are forced into a battle of survival when technology turns against them.

The movie stars Jaeden Martell as Eli, the archetypal nice kid, who has a crush on the popular and attractive Laura (Rachel Zegler), alongside his goofy best friend Danny (Julian Dennison, great to see so many years after ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’). The first 30 minutes are not bad with plenty of nostalgic touches, largely through an attempt to shoehorn every late 90s hit into a montage, and there’s a comfort in the spin ‘Y2K’ puts on the high school comedy, which was arguably at its peak in the late 1990s/early 2000s. However it’s once the sci-fi elements come in that it falls apart and beyond a few inventive death scenes, it’s just not that interesting.

‘Y2K’ is a nostalgic take on the 1990s with an ambitious premise, but unfortunately it isn’t able to deliver on some initial promise and it struggles to find the right balance between its disparate tones and themes.

Rating: 2/5

Directed By: Kyle Mooney

Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Kyle Mooney, The Kid Laroi, Lachlan Watson, Daniel Zolghadri, Mason Gooding, Lauren Balone, Eduardo Franco and Fred Durst

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt27218960/