Y2K

Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Daniel Zolghadri, Lachlan Watson, Eduardo Franco, Kyle Mooney, Mason Gooding, Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker

Director: Kyle Mooney

On the eve of the turn of the millennium, Eli (Martell) and Danny (Dennison) attend a New Year's Eve party hoping to finally be accepted as part of the cool crowd. However for Eli, it is a more monumental night, as he hopes to tell the girl of his dreams, the now-single Laura (Zegler), how he feels about her and that they can kiss at midnight. Unfortunately for Eli, the night has other plans as once midnight hits, technology turns against the humans and begins attacking them in brutal ways. As Eli, Laura and the other survivors head out into the night hoping to find a way to overthrow the now-sentient technology and survive to see the new year.

Coming of Age or High School movies will always find some sort of audience or speak to the viewer because regardless of what happens in the movie, it will spark memories of when we were kids. We all remember the guy/girl that we liked back then that we never told how we felt. We all had friends that we thought would be part of our lives forever and let influence every fiber of our being. While none of us every went though anything like the events of this film, there are going to be moments that hit regardless of the quality of the final product.

The movie starts out like Superbad and Booksmart, with our leads going to a party with their sights set on doing something that they think will change their lives forever. Unlike those films however, the movie is filled with flat jokes that don't really land. In fact, even after the technology starts its uprising and the pacing picks up, I felt this movie would have been better served as a short. Outside of Kyle Mooney (who wrote and directed the film) and some fun practical effects, nobody really felt like they were on the same page and the movie kind of plods along.

Fortunately, things change once a cameo hits. I won't be spoiling it here but it does show up on the movies IMDb page if you want to spoil it for yourself. Once this person arrives, things get really dumb, really funny and honestly really enjoyable. It's a shame the movie wasn't able to channel this energy for its entire runtime.

The cast is filled with talented young actors with Julian Dennison and Rachel Zegler. They seem to be having. a lot of fun but Jaeden Martell feels miscast as the lead. He has shown he can be a talented actor (Midnight Special, It, Knives Out) but here he either isn't trying or doesn't know how to approach the comedic aspects of the script. I know I already mentioned the cameo but it really does change the tone of the film and is maybe on of my favorite comedy cameos since Zombieland. Its very self-aware and I give the actor props for allowing themselves to be the butt of SEVERAL jokes.

While not a complete misfire, this apocalyptic comedy works as well as it does thanks to a mostly game cast and a blast of a third act.

Grade: C+