‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ review by Michelle Keenan
4 Stars
It’s hard to believe it’s been more than thirty years since everyone’s favorite time-traveling airheads from San Dimas passed their history exam. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure became one of the most quotable movies of its day (there probably isn’t a Gen Xer alive who doesn’t think of Bill and Ted whenever they see a Circle K). It perfectly encapsulated the teenage vernacular of the 1980s. Their excellent adventure was followed by a bogus journey and a prophecy that their music would unite the world.
Fast forward three decades to the long-awaited sequel, Bill & Ted Face the Music. Still married to their princesses and living in San Dimas, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are fathers to teenage daughters Billie (Samara Weaving) and Thea (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who are, of course, very like their dads and BFF’s to boot. Bill and Ted are all that remain of their one-hit-wonder band Wyld Stallyns. Essentially, they’re the same goofballs we last saw in 1991, only now they’re pushing 50, and things aren’t so hot; their wives want to go to couples counseling, they’re an embarrassment to everyone (except their daughters), and last but not least, they’ve yet to fulfill their rock-n-roll destiny.
This we learn in the opening minutes of the film, and that’s pretty much where things stop making sense. At this point, a woman from the future shows with a dire warning about the world’s fate, and it’s time to hop in the phone booth with our titular heroes and enjoy the ride. In what proves to be a nice tribute to the late great George Carlin (an essential character in the first two films), the woman is Rufus’s daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal), and the clock is ticking for Bill and Ted to write the song that will save the world.
With farce-like mayhem, Bill & Ted decide to travel to the future to steal the song from themselves, their wives time travel to see if they can ever be happy with them, and their daughters decide to save their dads (and ergo the world) by traveling through time to assemble the best band ever. Meanwhile, Kelly’s mother, “The Supreme Leader” (Holland Taylor), sends a robot named Dennis (hilariously played by Anthony Carrigan) to kill our titular heroes, and all hell breaks loose. I told you, don’t try to make sense of it.
The result is perhaps the sweetest thing to come out of 2020 so far. What made Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, so special in the first place was its heart. While lacking some of the epic dialogue from the first film, original writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson still manage to create a script that is oriented from that heart space. Winter and Reeves still embody that spirit, although Reeves looks somewhat less comfortable reprising his role than Winter. Having Galaxy Quest Director Dean Parisot at the helm is also a good call. The ensemble, which includes the return of William Sadler as “Death,” is a delight. It takes an exceptional team of talent to turn such a chaotic, seemingly lame-brained mess into something so fun, enjoyable, and even meaningful.
For our readers who prefer more serious cinema, you might want to take a pass on this one. For those of us who loved the first two films and need a bit of levity right now, you can’t go wrong with the good-natured shenanigans of Bill and Ted Face the Music. In a year of unprecedented challenges and divisiveness, maybe it took an unnecessary, but welcome, sequel to remind us it’s never too late be the best version of ourselves, to pursue our destiny, and [most importantly of all] “be excellent to each other.”
Rated PG-13 for some language.
How to watch: Bill and Ted Face the Music is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
Hint: Watch the credits all the way through.