3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Y2K

2024, Kyle Mooney (directorial debut; actor 'Saturday Night Live') -- download

I read an online defense of the movie, on Reddit, that people who giving the movie terrible reviews "didn't understand the movie is supposed to be a horror-comedy." Oh, I am quite QUITE sure everyone knew they were watching a horror-comedy, but I am not sure these people writing in defense of the movie would understand how terrifying terrible this movie was. I did say out loud that the only saving grace of the movie is that it was self-aware of being a "bad movie", but I am not quite sure it was self-aware enough. I have not been a big fan of Saturday Night Live for decades, but even when I was a fan, I acknowledged that most of the sketches were mediocre at best and the show shined for its rare viral-bound bits. This movie would be one of those sketches better left forgotten. I mention SNL because the movie was directed, and even starred, a cast-member.

OK, we all remember that Y2K was a big bust. For those that don't remember, the problem was that a lot of computer systems had two-digit numbering for dates. So, as 1999 became 2000, the system would suddenly think it was 1900. Lots of money was spent to install work-arounds to handle that "glitch" (not really a glitch, more a lack of foresight) but there were still tons of media hype about how it would end the world. A lot of people expected the world to literally end. It didn't. For the most part things just went on as they always did.

But what if it didn't? What if things DID go crazy. This movie posits that machines indeed do go crazy and start killing.

deletes long rambling recap, because nobody, not even me, would care.

So, high school kids go to a New Year's Eve party, dealing with the usual social strata woes and conflicts, when... yup, the machines do go mad.  Anything with electronics is possessed of an evil intelligence that allows it to combine with other parts to become killer bots -- the remote toy has a hairspray blow torch, the CD player shoots shiny shuriken, the microwave zaps your head once something else has tripped you. They're all rather ingenious, working in tandem using wires as prehensile appendages to gather more parts and make themselves more deadly. Outside the party, the world is falling from the skies.

You're recapping again.

So, its presented like a cliche ridden horror movie, and its attempting to go all dark-comedy because things are so utterly ridiculous, but unfortunately, definitely due to Mooney's guidance, its all just so bloody stupid. Sure, there are just enough cute nods to other technology movies of the 90s (Hackers, The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, etc.) to make me chuckle, but not enough to actually make me not groan constantly. You might chuckle at the Fred Durst cameo ("Fred Durst, you look like shit!") but end up cringing at him singing George Michael's "Faith". It never tries to make sense, but was not funny enough to accept the lunacy. They waste Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), and I am not sure why Rachel Zegler (Shazam! Fury of the Gods) ever said yes to this bad bad movie.