“Bill & Ted Face the music” Film Review

By: Keaton Marcus

Director Dean Parisot (Fun with Dick and Jane) has taken the reigns of this most bodacious franchise, helming Bill & Ted Face the Music, a surprisingly heartfelt, charming adventure with the help of its two amiable leads. However, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter aren’t the only charmers, as their two daughters step into the picture, played by Samara Weaving and Bridgette Lundy-Paine with complete ease, largely due to the excellent casting choices. What this movie would benefit from is more straightforward storytelling, the plot is all over the place, but besides succumbing to a chaotic feel, the third installment is entertaining, funny, and perfect for a family movie night during the pandemic. You and your buds, siblings, or parents will all have the same reaction: Whoa, Keanu!

The second movie in the earlier Bill & Ted movies, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, ended on a high-note of rock ‘n’ roll. Bill and Ted’s band, the Wyld Stallyns (pronounced wild stallions) united the universe with their most excellent concert 25 years ago. Now, somehow, their brave attempt eventually fizzled out, and now they’ve got cosmic issues…And personal ones. It’s up to the duo to unite everything once again with song, but your two favorite SoCal rockers have some other problems to deal with.

Their marriages. Remember when Bill and Ted met two princesses from 1400s England in the original movie? Well, now they’re married to them. Their wives, Joanna (Jayma Mays) and Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes) seek out couples therapy, to which the clueless guys attend. This makes for a hilarious, and uncomfortable scene that leads to utter disaster. Their band has also hit rock bottom, and with this challenge ahead of them, the two must get their act together and make the world party on with a most excellent song. They just have to find a year in the future where they wrote this thing, and well, steal it from themselves! At least they’ve got some totally tubular help.

Bill and Ted also have a couple of daughters now, Billie (Bridgette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving), who also set out on a time-travelling journey to find the greatest musicians the world has ever seen. Audiences get blessed with Jimmie Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, and many more to help their determined dads. So while their immaturity might frustrate the two princesses, it just endears the daughters. Lundy-Paine and Weaving are both stand-outs, and the latter is a star on the rise after her breakout role in Ready or Not. But will these two young millennials be able to save reality as we know it?

Parisot is clearly a massive fan of this franchise, injecting the movie with easter eggs and nostalgia. He also clearly cares about making this thing as good as it can get. The issues lie with the convoluted storytelling, and occasional lack of hilarity, which did plague the originals as well. However, in terms of curing pandemic blues, you can’t find a better option in theaters or on streaming services at the moment. I’ll go as far to even say it is even better than the classic movie, and it wraps up this now beloved trilogy with a satisfying and gleefully silly end.

The final opinion is: Nostalgic, yet totally focused on the future, Bill & Ted Face the Music is a flashy, silly, fun time-travelling adventure that will satisfy, despite its otherwise overly-complicated story…$PLURGE IT

Don't Worry, You Can Still Party On with "Bill & Ted Face the Music"

“Bill & Ted Face the music” Film Review

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