My quick rating – 5.3/10. Y2K kicks off with a bang, riding the nostalgia wave straight into the heart of 1999, but somewhere along the way, it forgets to keep the party alive. The setup is solid—two high school misfits crashing a New Year’s Eve bash on the brink of the millennium, only to get swept up in some wild, tech-fueled chaos. The opening scene even flirts with horror, making you think you’re in for something in the vein of Maximum Overdrive meets Superbad. But by the time the credits roll, it’s clear the film couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.
Let’s talk performances. Jaeden Martell as Eli is… well, bland. His shy, awkward demeanor doesn’t add much beyond making him forgettable. Julian Dennison, on the other hand, is a blast as his best friend Danny, stealing every scene he’s in. It’s a shame he’s not in more of them. Rachel Zegler and Lachlan Watson round out the main cast well, each embodying their Breakfast Club archetypes (popular girl and geek, respectively) without overdoing it. Then there’s Kyle Mooney, who pulls double duty as a stoner character and the film’s director. His comedic bits mostly miss the mark, but since he was juggling multiple roles, I’ll cut him some slack.
The real wildcard? Fred Durst. Playing himself, he’s fully in on the joke, letting the movie poke fun at him in ways that’ll either have you rolling or cringing, depending on your tolerance for late-’90s music references. (If you ever rocked out to Limp Bizkit, you’ll probably get a kick out of it.) The best moment? The kids’ brutally honest first impression: “WOW, you look like shit!” (2021 Durst is hilarious, Click for a full show in Chicago.)
The film’s biggest issue is its identity crisis. It teeters between satire, sci-fi horror, and raunchy comedy but never fully commits to any of them. The tech-apocalypse angle is a fun nod to Y2K hysteria, but it leans too much into parody without fully embracing the madness. It’s self-aware to a fault, constantly winking at the audience instead of building real stakes.
If you were in your 20s around the turn of the millennium, there’s enough nostalgia here to keep you entertained—though younger viewers might be left scratching their heads. And while the movie’s references hit home for me (especially the Family Values Tour shoutouts—one of the best concerts I ever attended), it doesn’t do enough to resonate beyond its target audience. Y2K is a fun throwback with some great moments, but ultimately too scattered to be memorable. It’s got the vibe of a mixtape with a killer opener that just sort of fizzles out by the end.
There are quite a few streaming options for this one including Amazon.