3.5 stars out of 5
I began to realize a girlfriend wasn’t right for me when she couldn’t pay attention to Kyle Mooney’s previous screenwriting effort, the ingenious Brigsby Bear. Now it’s 7 years later, the SNL vet has added director to his credits, and I went to the theater alone to see Y2K.
Mooney, with co-writer Evan Winter, has crafted what begins as a classic 80s-style teen comedy. Our protagonist is a sweet high school nerd who has a heavyset best friend. The nerd is in love with a beautiful popular girl who has been dating a blond jock. The filmmakers class things up with some quality casting: Our hero is Jaeden Martell who starred in the It movies, the dream girl is Rachel Zegler, terrific as Maria in Spielberg’s West Side Story, and in a fun bit of stunt casting, pop star The Kid Laroi plays the bully. We also get Cuba Gooding Jr’s son as Zegler’s ex, Tim Heidecker and Alicia “Vaccine Denier” Silverstone as Jaeden’s parents, and Mooney himself as the town’s stoner/skater video-store clerk.
Ah, but we’re not in the 1980s; it’s very late 1999 and, as it turns out, Y2K is real. Starting at a New Year’s Eve party, the story goes in a wildly different direction — global apocalypse, survival, and man vs. technology. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a comedy. Mooney’s skill here — besides his well-established comic mastery of teen awkwardness — is keeping this movie from becoming too silly or over-the-top. The story is about a boy and a girl and no matter how insane matters get, Mooney never strays far from that central idea.
Add in a soundtrack packed with turn-of-the-millennium pop hits, and you get a fun, smart/offbeat, even sweet movie. Watch it now by choice, or wait till the machines make you watch it.
Movie Review: Y2K
One response to “Movie Review: Y2K”
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This was an enjoyable review, 3.5 seems low. I happened to read one other review, of a painting, today. If you read just a little bit or the whole thing, the intention is that there’s good reviews of movies, art, music, u are part of it/ Thanks Jack. Y2K is “real”, the machines.
Painting by Arnold Böcklin.
“…However, this painting, despite all this drama in its devices and elements, is missing its usual key note, especially as a Romantic painting. There is absolutely nothing dramatic and visibly stirring or Romantic going on here. It’s just a house in the center, and some trees in the foreground (unequally positioned, which adds further disquietude).
Finally, the fact that it’s a Mediterranean house, which Böcklin does indeed utilize (that Italian scenery) but often in a more symbolist and imaginative way, is meaningful.”