I have to say that this made-for-TV movie held no surprises for me whatsoever. I expected it to be a less than average movie, complete with cheap effects, poor acting and a dull script. I also expected, and received, the standard plot line for a film-of-the-moment, this time about the Y2K bug and its effects on the world.
The story opens up on December 30, 1999 and we are introduced, in a very patronizing way, to the main cast and to the plot at hand. Someone is getting a tour of the facilities where only the best computer wizards have been hard at work ensuring that all is well when year 2000 hits. I assume that this person taking the tour was of some importance and I gathered that he was completing some sort of inspection. Why then, did he ask his tour guide what all the fuss about Y2K was about? Why, I ask, when this character is responsible for reporting back that everything is OK? Why? - Because this would be a convenient way of setting up the story for an audience that must have been living in a cave for the past three years.
We are soon introduced to the hero of the story, Nick Cromwell, played by Ken Olin. He is apparently the best there is and if he can't save us, no one can. Nick is aided by a pack of computer hackers who all have their own special powers, I suppose.
So we're all set. Enter Nick's family. His wife, Kelly, is beautiful and she is a doctor. Their daughter Alix is also beautiful, but she is spoiled and she hangs around with a bad crowd. The 'bad crowd' is two computer hackers who to live in a funky van straight out of the seventies. Alix is upset because mother won't let her go to a rave on New Years Eve. Bet ya can't guess what's gonna happen here!
Minor characters are introduced without reason (except to give us perspective from various locations across the United States). There is a couple in Manhatten. He plans on proposing to her at midnight. There is the old man who has turned his home into a fortress in order to protect himself. Even Jay Leno has a role, playing himself (as he does so often) making jokes about the Y2K bug on his television show.
As the big moment nears we are witnesses to some minor horrors. One character finds that a supermarket is closing early, much to the dismay of a line up of customers. Another finds that the banks are only giving out $20 per customer.
Soon we are treated to a world tour as the international dateline begins to hit the islands off of New Zealand and a disaster with an airforce plane occurs at 12:01am their time. Problems start to occur all over the world and that's when the true fun begins.
Unfortunately the film focuses in on one or two small tragedies by the time the dateline hits the United States. A nuclear reactor malfunctions in Sweden, killing everyone, so our hero must fly out to Washington state where a similar plant is housed. Of course this plant is located minutes away from his family, including that trampy daughter who, you guessed it, snuck out and went to the party anyway.
Sorry, but Y2K is lacking in credibility every step of the way. The effects are cheap if and when they do exist. The characters are one dimensional, failing miserably to elicit any sympathy from me. I could have cared less if that stupid kid got to the party or not. The film fails even to rank up there as a low-grade Irwin Allen flick. The story line just didn't come to life (it wasn't deadly enough) and the characters lacked the glamour of those from Allen's films.
And finally, this film dates itself before it even gets out of the starting gate. It was released on television six weeks before the big event. If that Y2K bug fails to reap havoc, this film will become a laughable implausability, and it will probably never be seen again. On the other hand, if we do have the catastrophes some are predicting, who's going to want to watch a B-grade TV movie about it?
