Fan Reactions To A24’s Latest Film Y2K

Fan rushed out to the theaters this past weekend to see Kyle Mooney’s Y2K, a nostalgic and hilarious, yet flawed time capsule of millennial angst. Find out what people are saying about the latest A24 film. 

Kyle Mooney, director of the film, has quirky sensibilities that have always felt like an odd but fascinating blend of pop-culture nostalgia and a disillusioned, adult perspective. Fans Y2K particularly gravitated toward this nostalgic quality, relishing the way it captured the late ’90s and early 2000s, from the music to the fashion to the general vibe of youthful rebellion. For many, the film served as a time capsule of their own high-school experiences, replete with references to outdated technology, now-primitive cell phones, and the looming anxiety of Y2K. There was a certain comfort in seeing these familiar, often cheesy cultural touchstones brought to life, even as the film skewered them with an adult cynicism.

Y2K begins with a familiar setup: two high-school outsiders—shy, nerdy Eli (Jarden Martell) and his more outgoing friend Danny (Julian Dennison)—are desperate to crash a New Year’s Eve party thrown by the popular kids, hoping for one last chance at adolescent glory before the year 2000 arrives. With the world on the brink of the millennium, Eli is especially fixated on the girl of his dreams, Laura (Rachel Zegler), who’ll be at the party. For the first twenty minutes, Kyle Mooney (making his directorial debut) and co-writer Evan Winter craft an enjoyable, if predictable, R-rated teen comedy. They introduce a lively cast of eccentric personalities who set the stage for a night of awkward self-discovery. But then, as the clock strikes midnight, everything changes. The Y2K bug—once the stuff of paranoid speculation—becomes an apocalyptic nightmare. Consumer gadgets merge and mutate like something out of a horror movie, attacking anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. The teens must flee the party and venture into the suburban wilderness to survive. 

Many fans believe Kyle Mooney struggles to find a balance between genres. The transition from a teen comedy to a full-blown survival horror is jarring, and at times, frustrating. Key characters are killed off too early, seemingly just to shock the audience, leaving the remaining group of teens with little in terms of compelling replacements.

The movie also leans into stoner humor with a few standout moments, particularly through Kyle Mooney’s character, a laid-back, pot-smoking teen who’s more concerned about his devil sticks and the end of the world than, well, anything else. His carefree attitude and random philosophical musings provide some of the film’s best laughs, offering a hilarious contrast to the chaos unfolding around him.

That said, while the film undeniably delights in its nostalgia, many fans agree that its attempts to balance genres—shifting from teen comedy to survival horror. Ultimately, though, Kyle Mooney’s signature brand of humor provides enough of a wild, unpredictable ride to keep audiences entertained, even if the Y2K doesn’t always hit its marks.