Y2K (1998) User Reviews

For the set-design...

[Polaris_DiB · 5/10 · 5 December 2008]

Back in the late 90s, there was Y2K. If you were old enough to remember, you remember. If you weren't, no amount of explanation could really make sense, because it was pretty nonsensical. This movie is something like a worst-case scenario realization of the Y2K fear, where mob mentality grips the world and causes more damage than the potential computer problems. It's interesting, but there's not too much to it. The characters don't really seem to develop, in fact do little but panic. The action is kept to a single area, which is neat, but isn't kept very dynamic. Worst of all, what really dates this movie 10 years after it was made is the lack of real conclusion as to what Y2K means or meant to people. It's not a problem with ambiguity, it's a problem with uncertainty. Thus why the whole Y2K phenomenon seems so absurd these days.

What really stands out for this movie is the set-design. No expense was spared in the little details. This is not all that surprising as the director mostly works in set-design. And for what it's worth, he knows how to block his shots and tell the story visually. It's just that there wasn't much of a story he had to tell.

--PolarisDiB

The Worst Case Scenario

[sddavis63 · 7/10 · 17 February 2010]

This 10-minute short is mostly set in one room, as a family retreats into a sort of bunker to get themselves through the Y2K disaster - and, as far as this film is concerned, it is a disaster. There's not a lot to the story. As it begins, the male is on a short wave radio talking to people from around the world on New Year's Eve 1999 to find out what's happening when the clock strikes midnight. (My personal favourite was the man who said he was glad to have stayed in his village without any contact with the modern world - but, um, isn't he talking on a short wave radio?) Anyway, this presents a worst case scenario, although we never actually see any of it. It's all from radio reports (stuck in a room getting all the reports from the media reminded me a bit of "Night Of The Living Dead.") Disasters happen everywhere as midnight strikes, and the United States prepares for the worst. The president imposes a curfew and martial law is declared, and suddenly a stranger shows up at the bunker (or whatever it is) who's been injured by a landmine apparently planted by the male figure in the home to protect the family from the marauding hordes that are expected when chaos strikes at midnight. They take the guy in to help him, and then the movie suddenly comes to an end after obviously identifying the stranger as some sort of escaped prisoner.

Now, it's a kind of tongue in cheek watch - because nothing happened when the calendar suddenly changed to 2000. Back then ... This was probably something that was on a lot of minds, because there was a lot of talk about computers crashing, and electric grids crashing and planes crashing, etc. I have a vague memory of watching TV as midnight was striking in Australia, to see if anything would happen. By the time midnight struck here in Canada, we were pretty complacent - because nothing had actually happened anywhere. This film offers a bit of the sense of paranoia that was certainly around at the time. It's interesting from a historical/cultural perspective, although somewhat lacking in any substantive content. Still, to be honest, it's kind of fun to watch. 7/10