It’s been nearly thirty years since we last saw our favorite pair of dim-witted, big-hearted, time-traveling metalheads grace our screens. As any kid of the eighties already knows, 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is essential viewing. Its brand of off-kilter, feel-good, sci-fi comedy may have been next to commonplace at the time of its release (comparable to films of its era like UHF, My Science Project, Weird Science, and several others), but today it feels fresher and more unique than ever. As old as it may make me sound to say it, they just don’t make movies like it anymore.
1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is an adorably demented funhouse that saw our heroes rock on, defy Death, and battle evil robot versions of themselves. The sequel is an almost-surrealistic take on the characters that left some fans scratching their heads but also left just as many in awe of how far out it was willing to go. Many wanted more Bill and Ted after Bogus Journey. After years passed with no sequel in production (we won’t count the short-lived 1992 sitcom or the two-year animated series that started in 1990), hope dwindled to nothing more than wishful thinking for the most die-hard of fans.
No doubt capitalizing on today’s obsession with eighties and nineties nostalgia, there is finally a third installment to make Bill and Ted’s adventures into a trilogy. The recently released Bill & Ted Face the Music is about as heartfelt and necessary as an opportunistic cash grab can get—and I mean that as nothing short of a compliment. In the days of Covid-19 and extreme political unrest, Bill and Ted’s latest adventure simply could not have come at a better time.
Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves reprise their iconic roles of Bill and Ted. At the film’s beginning, they are now fifty-something, washed-up has-beens who still haven’t written the song that will unite all of humanity. Time begins folding on itself as a result, and the world is at risk of imploding. The solution, of course, is for Bill and Ted to time travel to the future and steal the song from themselves.
Concurrently, Bill and Ted’s spitting-image daughters (Brigette Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving) decide to do a little time traveling of their own so they can form a band of history’s greatest musicians (including Jimi Hendrix and Louis Armstrong) to back their struggling fathers. Meanwhile, a highly deadly though increasingly needy robot (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan) is sent from the future to end Bill and Ted’s existence.
If it sounds a little cluttered, that’s because it is, but it wouldn’t be a Bill and Ted movie if it weren’t. So much happens in its 91-minute runtime that multiple viewings are almost necessary for the humor to fully sink in. Director Dean Parisot keeps the pacing airtight, making the more subtle comedic bits hard to catch with all the detail swirling around them. As of this writing, I’ve seen the film three times. I laugh louder with each viewing and have been pleasantly surprised to find something new to appreciate every time I watch it.
Reeves and Winter do a great job of keeping their youthful energy while obviously accepting the fact that they’re not portraying teenagers anymore. The older, not entirely wiser Bill and Ted are a welcomed new interpretation of the characters. The actors’ talents have impressively developed over the years, and their maturity brings an interesting new weight to their roles. Portraying future Bills and Teds in various incarnations (from pub performers living out of a van to testosterone-fueled prison inmates), the actors get multiple opportunities to sink their teeth into some meaty comedic moments and always live up to the task grandly.
William Sadler also reprises his Bogus Journey role of the Grim Reaper. Insecure and narcissistic as ever, Sadler’s absurdly human portrayal of the supernatural being is one of the film’s many highlights. The true scene-stealer of the film this time around, however, is Anthony Carrigan as Dennis Caleb McCoy, the lethal but guilt-ridden cyborg from the future. Carrigan’s neurotic and playful performance verges on too much at times, but in a movie where “too much” is often the norm, it manages to ultimately stand out as the most inspired piece of lunacy the film has to offer.
Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Pain are appropriately loveable as Billie and Thea, Bill and Ted’s aimless, music-loving daughters. While they inhabit their roles with the proper puppy dog body language, they’re unfortunately never fully given the opportunity to make the characters their own. Their performances never go deeper than being spot-on and highly amusing impressions of young Bill and Ted. In a movie as full of jokes, atmosphere, and characters as this one, it’s only natural that some things get slightly lost in the mix. Hopefully, we’ll get to see Billie and Thea’s personalities develop further in future adventures.
Minor grievances aside, it’s hard to pick on Bill & Ted Face the Music because it knows exactly what it is and exactly what it wants to achieve. Screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon— the original creators who also wrote Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey—constantly ride the line between absurdity and earnestness. Both extremes have always been given the same care in the Bill and Ted universe, which is what makes both their pay-offs so astoundingly high.
Bill and Ted were created to bring a message of hope, no matter how preposterous the road leading to it may be. The weirdness and wackiness littered throughout Bill & Ted Face the Music is always balanced by the characters’ humanity and the film’s overall theme of unity. Bill & Ted Face the Music dares to be optimistic at heart, which allows for its humor to be all the more effective and grounded—regardless of how extreme it often is.
Is it a deep movie that pushes the boundaries of filmmaking? No, but it’s not trying to be. Bill & Ted Face the Music is unabashed cinematic joy filled with wit, creativity, and goodwill. It’s amazing how something so stupid can be so intelligent and how something so silly can be so sincere. It simply makes you feel good to watch it. What more could you possibly ask from a movie today?
GRADE: A–
