BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC - REVIEW

 

This weekend sees the release of another continuation of a franchise rooted in pop culture’s nostalgic past.  I am happy to say that BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC stands above most other attempts to recapture or sadly cash in on bottled lightning.

Their first outing was nothing ground-breaking.  While it did not ape BACK TO THE FUTURE by any means it did come off the heels of its success.  What makes the adventure excellent is of course Bill and Ted themselves.  Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter’s chemistry and charm elevated the magic of two idiots who possess endless positivity and good natured, fun loving attitudes.  There was no villain to speak of.  No second act “break up” where they go off on their own only to realize they need each other. Combine that with their strange ability to almost instantly win over each historical figure they come across, we couldn’t help but believe and root for the fact that somehow, these two simple minded teens will someday manage to put their heads together and create something profound and world changing.

Then they managed to do it again.  BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY was a rare sequel that actively tried to do something different while still treading familiar territory of the themes that worked the first time.  The filmmakers made actual additions to the series, rather than just send them off through time again for some contrived reason.  There are some missteps in the end, sure.  But William Sadler’s Grim Reaper is a hysterical imagining.  And it features a genuinely clever depiction of Hell.  Again, nothing spectacular, but it helped Bill and Ted’s “be excellent to each other” and “party on, dudes!” attitude maintain pop culture relevancy, instead of being the one people try to forget when they think of the series.

29 years later, they do manage to be ground-breaking.  Like Bill and Ted themselves, the movie isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is.  When digging into its past, Hollywood constantly trips over itself trying to force nostalgia.  They call it “fanservice” but it’s really just shamelessly throwing things it has already done into a blender and calling it a sequel.  Full credit, then, to series creators and writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon who decided to tell us instead simply what happens next as opposed to again.

As before, the filmmakers add elements to what works.  I was initially wary of the focus on offspring.  This easily could have been another instance of “new” younger “characters” who act the same and do the same plot again, while Bill and Ted stay in the background and “pass the baton”.  Happily, this is not the case.  The duo returns to center stage and remain series’ the driving force.  Before we only got a vague sense that the music of the Wyld Stallyns would just catch on and unite us as a society.  This movie focuses on exactly how and why the world needed the band.

The split focus is smartly done.  Bill and Ted go off on their own to acquire the music their future selves are destined to write, while their daughters round up the supporting characters to help.  As Billie and Thea, Bridget Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving give pretty impressive performances.  They aren’t just imitations or “female versions” of the main characters.  They are their fathers’ daughters to be sure, but they have their own cadence and sway that let them stand apart.

As returning characters go, Ted’s Dad, Missy, and Deacon are used well to comedic effect.  I don’t want to give it away, but the running joke of Missy’s romantic endeavors is hilariously revisited.  And William Sadler returns to almost steal the show as Death near the film’s climax.  I’m glad to say that he isn’t shoe-horned in to have the same amount of screen time as the last film; while he also doesn’t just show up once only to disappear.  Again, no mere fanservice.  Death returns in this film to serve an actual purpose to the plot.

The new characters, however, are where this film really shines.  Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are just a blast to watch not only as Bill and Ted, but as different versions of themselves throughout the future as they try to hunt down their world saving music. Which was a smart choice on the writer’s part.  Not exactly the same time travel concept, but familiar to what makes the series cohesive in a storytelling sense.  It also plays to another staple, as it lets our heroes sidestep the whole “break up for about 15 minutes of runtime and then inevitably reunite” cliché.

It also helps the characters keep from getting stale, which even I admit is something they were absolutely in danger of.  That magic of their simplicity could have also been the movie’s downfall.  Bill and Ted are static characters. They pretty much boil down to “constantly upbeat” and “stupid”.  That’s it.  For two previous movies that is their entire character development or honestly lack thereof.  At the end of the first film the only real change they go through is they know a little bit more about history than they did at the beginning.  Which, humorously, was almost nothing.   Even by the end of Bogus Journey they still have no real idea what makes their music special and are pretty much in the same place they started.  They should NOT work three separate times.  Smartly, yet dangerously, 29 years later not much has changed.  They don’t come off quite as dimwitted this time, but they are otherwise the same as they always have been.

Now, I have almost actively been trying to avoid talking about another new character who is one of my favorite parts of the whole movie.  Played by Anthony Carrigan, THIS character steals the show and is just such a surprising delight it would be a disservice to spoil it.  SO let’s move on the Kristen Schaal, who plays Kelly, the daughter of the late George Carlin’s Rufus.  In a role that mostly pays homage to Carlin and the character he played; she feels a little wasted.  She is important to the plot, but comedically she doesn’t get a lot to do.  Ultimately the role could have been played by anyone.  Or maybe it’s just a case of impossible to fill shoes.  Rufus feels like a third lead when you think about the first two films, yet he is barely in either of them.  In fact, Schaal is probably in this one more than Carlin was in both previous movies combined.  Yet his is the bigger impact.

I guess my final verdict is obvious.  BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC is totally worth the wait.  It's everything you liked about the last two, while not leaning on, retreading, or wearing anything out from the past.  It’s just plain fun, with a lot of laugh out loud moments throughout.  In other words, it is totally bodacious, and most triumphant.