Editor’s Note: While movie theaters across the country are in the process of reopening, it’s important to note that we watched this film from the safety and comfort of our home. Should you decide to watch the movie for yourself, we encourage you to use best practices and common sense in order to avoid contraction and spread of COVID-19.
Rating: A-
Earlier this summer—hell, earlier this week—I would’ve almost certainly made the argument that Bill (S. Preston, esquire) and Ted (Theodore Logan) were artifacts better left in the 90s, where they belonged. That’s not a difficult stance to take. It has, after all, been 31 years since the world was first introduced to these avatars of Gen X irreverence in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and 29 years since we last saw them in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. “Some franchises are best as memory,” was the argument I was fully prepared and expecting to make.
Yet the charms of Bill and Ted Face the Music are such that my expected argument is rendered moot. After 29 years, Bill and Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves), and their namesake movie, are still wonderfully, beautifully, perfectly, and delightfully fucking idiotic. For the cynics, the jaded, and the pretentious, that alone might be enough to write the movie (indeed, the series) off entirely. I can’t really blame them. Bill and Ted Face the Music was never intended for them.
No, this a movie for those who don’t take movies that seriously. Those who are looking for something mindless and fun and, ultimately, enjoyable. For those unwilling to leave concerns about “cinema” at the door, Bill and Ted Face the Music is probably insufferable. That’s their loss. The simple, stupid delights of the movie are pitch perfect and wonderful making for an experience that’s way better than it has any right to be.
Simply put, Bill and Ted Face the Music is entirely non-heinous, decidedly unbogus, and, in all ways, definitively most excellent.
As you may (or may not) recall, we last left our heroes rocking the absolute shit out of their local talent show in San Dimas, California (which, fun fact, inexplicably also featured Primus) with a riotous cover of Argent’s “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.” Things looked well for the duo who were prophesied to write a song that united the world and led to the establishment of a future utopia. Flash-forward 29 years and, well, they just never got around to it. Facing middle age and irrelevance, and with the future of their marriages on the line, Bill and Ted once again receive the call to adventure, this time from the time traveler Kelly (Kristen Schaal), daughter of George Carlin’s Rufus. The circuits of time are collapsing, leading to the universe beginning to fold in on itself. Now, the duo have less than 90 minutes to save the whole of existence. They’re aided, this time, by daughters Billie and Thea (Brigette-Lundy Paine and Samara Weaving) who are tasked with putting together the greatest band ever assembled as Bill and Ted travel time looking for some much needed inspiration.
Series creators Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon return to pen the script for Bill and Ted Face the Music, giving the movie a sense of narrative cohesion that might have been lost had the series gone with new writers. As easy as it might be to dismiss the film as a cash grab banking on our collective nostalgia for the series, Matheson and Solomon do their best to ensure that Face the Music has every reason to exist. The result is a movie that is heavy on silly laughs and heart and brings the whole series together in a satisfying way.
Director Dean Parisot, who, as director of films like Galaxy Quest, is no stranger to cult classics, gives Bill and Ted Face the Music the light hand it needs to truly soar. Parisot, like Matheson and Solomon, know exactly what this movie is and what it needs to be, and as a team they work hard to ensure that nothing gets in its way.
So, too, do the film’s stars. It’s clear that Winter and Reeves have returned to the series out of true adoration for the characters and the world they created. Reeves, after all, in his post-The Matrix, post-John Wick stage of his career, certainly doesn’t need the work. And while Winter has more or less disappeared from the front of the camera in recent years, he has become something of an amazing documentarian over the last decade, directing such films as Downloaded (a fascinating look at Napster), Deep Web (a disturbing look at the activities of darknet users), and the upcoming Zappa (about Frank Zappa). Neither star needs this movie to exist and so that it does exist suggests a genuine love for the series and, of course, its fans.
The love itself shows in the script and final movie. While of course there are call backs and in-jokes, Bill and Ted Face the Music works hard to ensure that those aren’t the driving force. This is an entirely new narrative that explores a new realm for Bill and Ted. Middle age is hard and it can be difficult to make the kinds of decisions that need to be made for anyone, but perhaps especially for two shiftless dreamers burdened with great fate. At its core, this a film about discovering your purpose and balancing that with the needs of parenthood.
Which makes Thea and Billie something of the heart of this film. Weaving and Paine are wonderful new additions to the Bill and Ted canon and represent perfect updates of their father-characters. The actresses manage to capture the spirit of Bill and Ted and bring them into a Gen Z world. It’s not hard to see a scenario where the series continues with them at the helm and, in the right circumstances and with the right script, it could work beautifully.
But even if this is the last we see of Bill, Ted, Billie, and Thea, Bill and Ted Face the Music is the perfect coda, and lets the series end on a perfect note. Through it, we’re reminded of the simple pleasures of well-executed stupid comedy. But more than that, it’s a movie with a lot of heart made with a lot of love. In that way it’s a genius affirmation of those philosophical words that guided the first film 31 years ago: be excellent to each other.
Bill and Ted Face the Music is now available in select theaters and on demand.
