Bill & Ted Face the Music
By Quinn Marcus
Bill & Ted Face the Music
(2020)
Age: 9+
70/100: Sweet/Sour
“Be excellent to each other!” Bill & Ted Face the Music was written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon and was directed by Dean Parisot, director of Galaxy Quest. In part one of their excellent adventures, Bill and Ted traveled back in time to collect famous people from the past and bring them back to the present for their history presentation. In the third chapter, reality and time itself are at stake as Bill and Ted travel throughout time, looking for a version of themselves in the future that has the song they need to unite the universe. Meanwhile, their daughters go back in time, searching for the most influential musicians to help their dads play the music. I know right, the stakes change pretty quickly in these movies. Ever heard the term “candy for the soul?” (ya neither have I). I don’t mean filling your soul with candy, but honestly, something just to watch for fluffy, sweet, lighthearted entertainment. That’s what Bill & Ted Face the Music achieves to the fullest, but the movie isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, let me explain. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you eat some candy, it can be any type of candy you can ever imagine? Sometime later, a friend asks you what candy you ate, but alas, you have forgotten. All you can remember is the satisfying, sweet taste in your mouth. Of course this situation only applies to those with a poor memory. Unlike them I can remember the last candy I had perfectly given my superior mind, it was…um, anyways! That’s what this movie is; you won’t remember anything super significant about it, you’ll just remember that you had an enjoyable time watching it. Now, without further ado, let’s get started with the review (did a little bit of rhyming there, did you see that). What were my flaws?
The story. Although creative and appropriately ridiculous, I found the plot to be muddled and a tad overstuffed. In Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Bill and Ted are working towards a common goal, keeping their friendship together by acing their history presentation. In this, Bill and Ted are trying to find a song to unite the universe while trying to keep their marriages together. The major difference between the two movies is the number of subplots. In the original, the only part of the film that you could begin to consider a subplot is Napoleon hanging out with Ted’s brother and friends. In this one, we have the two daughters trying to form a band, the wives in couples therapy, the insecure killer robot hunting Bill and Ted, future San Dimas with the “great ones,” trying to figure out a way to save reality. It’s kind of hard to follow and didn’t always work. However, it’s perfect if you want to sit back, relax in quarantine, and watch some insanity. I have one mixed point before I get into the positives. The comedy. Many will disagree with this point, and I can understand that, but the comedy kind of went up and down for me. When Bill and Ted were on screen, I laughed out loud, when the daughters showed up, I wasn’t nearly as amused. This is because the two daughters, Thea and Billie, are precisely the same as Bill and Ted. While this is cool, they felt like a rehash of the original characters; there wasn’t much special about them. They made the same jokes, acted the same; it became pretty tiring at some point. I felt some energetic highs and lows, so in my opinion, the comedy was not as good as I wanted it to be.
Alright, what did I like about the movie? The nostalgia and cheesy visuals. This film was filled with callbacks to the original film; the special effects were absolutely bodacious and perfectly cheesy. While watching, you get an instant rush of retro adrenaline that keeps you going, that’s something the world really needs right now, and they did it right. The directing. Dean Parisot may not be the original director, but damn did he do a good job. Using all of the proper elements needed to make a film like this, he managed to craft a lively, rocking, crazy, flawed film that benefits from its epic cast. As someone in quarantine, I say this is a must-watch. Personally, I would probably watch it again, but overall, it’s a happy distraction from the bad in the world right now. Get over to your television, call your parents over, open up Prime Cinema, and support this movie by either renting or buying for a most impressive price of 20 bucks. Trust me; you’ll surely have a wild ride watching it.
The cast, including Keanu Reeves (John Wick), Alex Winter (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), Samara Weaving (Ready or Not), and Brigette Lundy Paine (Bombshell), all had excellent performances. However, Reeves and Winter are truly the stars of the show. They were both able to portray their hysterical and dumb characters without ever losing any of the charisma or charm from the original movie. Also, when they played the future versions of themselves, their comedic chemistry was perfect, especially in that prison scene with some awesomely ridiculous makeup. And fat, drunk Keanu, I mean, can’t get much more insane than that. Despite having lesser characters, I thought that Weaving and Lundy Paine both were highly entertaining to watch on screen, and never really got boring, just a little slow in terms of comedy.
Anybody can technically watch this movie; there’s nothing terrible in it. Some kissing, high stakes, non-graphic disintegrations, people are in peril occasionally, a few uses of “di-k” and “hell.” I really just put my 9+ rating there because I believe that’s the perfect age to start understanding the movie correctly. But anyone, at any age, can watch it and enjoy it in their own way, that’s the magic of Bill & Ted, one of the great comedic duos of the 21st and 20th centuries.
$kip it? $tream it? or $plurge it?