A new year brings new possibilities, a cliched and trite concept that adorns many inspirational posters and social media statements whenever we reach the final few days of a particular year, patiently waiting to transition into the next one. However, this was not necessarily the case in the late 1990s, with the fear of entering into a new millennium being a legitimate concern for many people, especially with the rumoured presence of the “Y2K bug”, the threat of a virus that would corrupt all technology and cause them to turn on humanity. It’s a concern that ultimately proved to be nothing more than radical fearmongering. Still, it was widespread enough to become a historically resonant moment in recent history, especially since it was a comparatively recent event that is still widely discussed through firsthand accounts of this supposedly unsettling moment. One such perspective comes on behalf of Kyle Mooney, who was a teenager on that unnerving New Year’s Eve, and who therefore has quite a unique recollection of these events, which forms the foundation for Y2K, his directorial debut in which he crafts a darkly comical horror about a group of high school students plucked from various cliques who find themselves quite literally navigating the end of the world after being witness to a technological takeover in the form of the long-feared “singularity” that makes it very clear that it intends to destroy humanity from the very core, with our heroes seemingly being the only people who can prevent this mechanical apocalypse, despite their lack of actual skill. Mooney has been flirting with stepping into the role of director since his days on Saturday Night Live (where he was severely underused, but still managed to be one of their most valuable additions at the time). While he may not have directed it, both his performance and screenplay for Brigsby Bear indicated that he possessed a very strong authorial voice. None of this is relevant in the case of Y2K, which is a dreadfully unconvincing bundle of misguided ideas, heavy-handed directorial decisions and poor planning that all ultimately coalesces into one of the year’s most dismal offerings, and one that bears hardly any trace to any of the potential it had on the surface.

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful creative tools at the disposal of artists and is often severely abused by those who don’t realise that it should be a seasoning rather than the main ingredient in films that aim to be throwbacks to the past. This is one area in which Y2K does show some promise, since it was crafted by someone who has made his career by riffing off the rising popularity in nostalgia-based media, but rarely doing so in a way that seems conventional, instead choosing to go in his direction. For all of its faults (which we will discuss momentarily), this film does initially have quite a sincere appreciation for the past, replicating the final vestiges of the 1990s in a way that feels somewhat interesting, with the first act having a lot of promise, even at its most trite. Mooney was dedicated to recreating this period – everything from the technology to the costumes and set design, to the linguistic intricacies of the characters’ speech was extremely accurate, almost to the point of bordering on uncomfortable, since there is a reason these elements are considered a remnant of the past that will likely never make a comeback in any form other than to be ironic. Crafting a film that captures the spirit of an era is certainly not a rare occurrence. Still, it has proven to be quite promising – recent coming-of-age films like Didi and Mid-90s capture this very peculiar period between the two decades in a way that is much more observational but uses these smaller elements as momentum to move towards something much deeper. That is not the case with Y2K, which is a bombastic barrage of references that are entertaining at first but are soon shown to be entirely hollow once it comes time to develop these ideas into something that isn’t just a compilation of the most obvious jokes, which is where Mooney seems to show the first signs of not having thought every aspect of this film through, and which serves as the foundation for the eventual collapse of any goodwill amassed in those more entertaining earlier segments that prove to be a fleeting glimpse into a more interesting work that quite simply did not manifest in any discernibly interesting form.

Y2K did have a very promising concept, but as we’ve seen on countless occasions, a good idea means very little when nearly every effort to bring it to life fails, especially when it is squandered by poor directorial decisions that invalidate the potential it had at the start. Mooney is certainly someone who has done some solid work over the years in his capacity as a writer and comedian, but the moment it came time to bring this to the director’s chair, he seemed to fall behind in a way that makes us wonder whether he actually had the command of the material that we’d have anticipated from someone so clearly invested in his ideas, and who worked laboriously to bring these ideas to life. He was so evidently out of his depth that it’s surprising that the film managed to even come together in the first place – and we find that it almost immediately descends into a state of enormous artistic disrepair, solely because of how much he relies on a blend of nostalgia and outdated genre techniques, both of which could be effective in the right hands, but which is certainly not at all the case in this film, which feels entirely misguided. This era of broad, over-the-top comedies that press down on the ignition and don’t stop until the very end has become so trite and hackneyed, it honestly surprising (in an era where nuance is more valuable than ever) that these components not only slipped through the cracks but became the main propellant for the film, almost as if Mooney and all involved were as insistent on pandering to this style of lacklustre humour as much as they were focused on the hearkening back to a previous era. The genre elements themselves are genuinely dismal – the design of the technological villains was interesting, but proved to be the only valuable part of the film, with the misguided attempts at blending horror, dark comedy, action and science fiction falling apart at the seams, proving that Mooney had essentially taken on a concept that he didn’t know how to handle in its entirety, leading to a film defined more by its poor direction and lacklustre writing than anything else, which is frankly unforgivable, even for a debut.

One would at least imagine that a cast of talented actors would at least offer some reprieve, but there isn’t any sense of consistency in the performances, which are about as mediocre as the film in which they appear, Y2K being a perfect example of gifted actors still being unable to elevate poor material. Jaeden Martell plays yet another skittish, socially awkward young man, an archetype that is far too one-dimensional and dull for his multitudes of talents that he doesn’t get to show regularly, while Rachel Zegler does her best to play the more complex of the two leads, but also can’t help but default to the overly-precocious, twee persona that has become her staple since her breakthrough a few years ago, an unfortunate occurrence for someone with an abundance of gifts that seemingly very few filmmakers know how to use properly. The two leads are uninspiring and somewhat bland, but they’re at least solid enough to anchor the film – it’s the supporting cast that feels most egregious, with some of the year’s worst performances being found throughout the film. Julian Dennison, who was phenomenal in Hunt for the Wilderpeople nearly a decade ago, is once again cast as the stereotypical “funny fat friend”, someone whose physical appearance and over-the-top personality were used as nothing more than a punchline throughout the film, with Mooney making virtually no effort to shade in the nuances of a character played by someone genuinely gifted, but who has not been able to do the work that matches his skills for quite some time. Alicia Silverstone and Tim Heidecker are wasted to the point where we have to wonder if they agreed to be in this film as a favour or to repay a debt since neither one of them does anything noteworthy. Finally, a lot of the marketing around Y2K pointed towards the presence of the divisive 1990s counterculture icon Fred Durst, who played himself in quite a large supporting part, and while his performance is amusing for its novelty, it becomes very clear that he doesn’t have much of a future as an actor (and his three directorial efforts make it clear that there’s not much there in terms of his work behind the camera) – and when the climax consists of an off-key mumbling through George Michael’s “Faith”, it is clear that nuance was not a factor in the choice to cast him in this role. No one in Y2K is particularly good, and while none of them drags the film downwards, they also fail to salvage it from outright mediocrity.

In theory, Y2K has a fantastic concept and more than enough merit in its underlying ideas to be at least somewhat successful, so it seems bewildering that it ended up being an unmitigated disaster, and one of the worst films of the years, a label that is not given with any pleasure, considering so much of this film felt like it had potential, none of which was found in the final product. Mooney is not someone who should be dismissed going forward, since he is dedicated to forging his path and going about expressing himself in a decidedly different manner than the mainstream, but not every attempt to go against the grain should be celebrated, especially when looking at something that is quite artistically vacant and lacking in any real nuance, and instead functions as wall-to-wall absurdity without even an ounce of logic to justify some of these decisions. Y2K doesn’t even manage to scrounge up enough goodwill to be entertaining, with the majority of the film causing us to sigh in frustration or wince in confusion, neither of which are valuable reactions to a concept that could have been massively improved with a more concise structure and clear understanding of its underlying ideas. I am always pleased to see promising artists stepping behind the camera as directors, but Mooney seems like someone who should have made his debut with something more nuanced and simple, and while the concept of this film is promising, perhaps it should have been handed over to another director that could have worked with his ideas and developed them properly, rather than allowing Mooney to have free reign to create what is essentially nothing more than a disjointed, unconvincing bundle of ideas that don’t ever amount of anything other than a frustrating, bewildering jumble of obvious needle drops, garish fashion and a story that simply does not do justice to the period that it supposedly reveres and looks upon fondly. Misguided in structure and narratively quite dull, Y2K takes a promising idea and turns it into something extremely ineffective.