Y2K Review: '90s Nostalgia Can't Save Kyle Mooney's Movie

Ah, the Y2K bug. For many millennials, our first experience with a proper social freak-out. Kyle Mooney — a director who is quickly developing a reputation for quirky comedic storytelling, albeit aimed at a limited audience — tackles the coming of the new millennium in the horror comedy "Y2K." It devotes all of its energy to recreating the atmosphere of the late '90s, and it mostly succeeds — it's just a shame that it does so at the expense of, well, everything else in the film. While its nods to the '90s are all painfully accurate, it seems like Mooney was so focused on capturing the essence of Y2K that he forgot that all of this needs to be in the service of a story that's actually engaging. Sorry to all involved, but 91 minutes has never felt so long.

Awkward and reserved Eli (Jaeden Martell) may be pining after the girl of his dreams, the popular-athletic-nerdy Laura (Rachel Zegler), but he's going to be spending New Year's Eve 1999 alone. Or at least, with only the company of his best friend Danny (Julian Dennison), who is as confident and gregarious as Eli is painfully shy. When they make the impulsive decision to attend a New Year's party at Soccer Chris' (The Kid Laroi) house, they hold out hope that this is going to be the night that changes everything. And it is — but not for the reasons they're expecting. Because when the clock strikes midnight, all of the house's technology starts to go haywire, with even sweet little Tamagotchis gleefully taking part in a murder spree. With the world's technology turning against mankind, it's up to Eli and his fellow survivors to save not just themselves, but all of humanity.

In terms of aesthetics, the '90s vibes are immaculate. It doesn't just do a bit where we see someone log onto the internet and there's the demonic dial-up sound — it actually includes the detail of the door sound effect as a user enters or leaves AIM, something most of us probably forgot about until hearing it here, where it activated a long dormant part of our brains. For audiences who were teens or preteens in 1999, a lot of this will feel like watching a home movie of you and your friends messing around at someone's house. But that kind of leads us to the film's most puzzling aspect: Who, exactly, is this for?

It's a teen movie with Gen Z stars, but all of the cultural nods are aimed at millennials — and elder millennials, at that. Yes, Y2K fashion is a big trend among younger generations right now, so it's not a bad idea on the surface to capitalize on that with a movie set during the Y2K scare. But everyone old enough to get what this movie's trying to do — from its Fred Durst cameo to its entitled boy in a bucket hat crusading against posers and parody of '90s hacker movies — isn't really the target demographic of "Y2K." No disrespect to Kyle Mooney — he's a very funny comedian (just look at some of his best "Saturday Night Live" moments) and seems like a stand-up guy — but the fact that he has an extended role in this film as a stoner guy in his late 30s hanging out with all the teen characters is just indicative of the larger problem of "Y2K." Speaking as a millennial, we need to just let a teen movie be a movie for teens. Why does it need to be nostalgic for people pushing 40?

This probably won't be such a big problem if the '90s references weren't the only thing "Y2K" has going for it. But aside from cultivating a pitch-perfect time capsule, it struggles with a lot of the basic elements of storytelling. The dialogue is genuinely terrible, made worse by the fact that it's leaning way too hard into '90s slang. And worst of all, the characters are paper thin and uninspiring, making it a challenge for audiences to become emotionally invested in their plight.

It's trying to pay homage to '90s teen horror movies — "The Faculty" immediately comes to mind — but it misses the most crucial element that made those movies endearing even if they were objectively on the cheesy side. They had characters that we cared about, that were easy to root for. There's not one of those in this movie — or if there is, they get killed off fairly early in the proceedings. As the hero of the piece, Eli needs to be someone we vibe with immediately, but there's nothing there: despite Jaeden Martell's best efforts, the character is just flat. These teens seem like they're in the film simply to reflect different stereotypes of '90s kids, without considering that they also need to come across like actual people.

"Y2K" has some strong points. The soundtrack is perfect — it feels like you're riding along with your best friend listening to a burned CD of the decade's greatest hits. The computerized characters have some visual flair, and the ways that they dispatch their human victims are surprisingly inventive. But it's hard to move past the inherent weaknesses in the script, and even more difficult to forgive the stubborn refusal to make any of these characters even remotely interesting. The intention is clear, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

"Y2K" hits theaters on December 6.