BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC (2020)

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC  (2020)

Tagline:  The Future Awaits

(Adventure, Comedy, SciFi) [PG-13]

Get real jobs. Be role models to your daughters. Oh, never mind. You are. They're twenty-four. They live at home, and they're unemployed. 

In this one Bill (played by Alex Winter) and Ted (played by Keanu Reeves) are now 25 years removed from their last adventure and are in pursuit of creating a song that will save the universe as we know it and prevent time from imploding on itself. They are visited by Kelly from the future and she gives them the dire update that they have like just a few hours to come up with the song. The only problem is the old band has broken up and they are no longer churning out songs that many people outside of their two daughters even enjoy. Can their daughter take time out from their busy audiophile lives to help their dads fulfill their destiny, or will we end up with chaos the world has never known? 

Cinematically this thing is on par with the other two films, but it doesn’t have loads of craziness that the other two films provided. There is a pretty serious lack of bizarre creatures and things we haven’t really seen before. This actually helps translate to a more straightforward and easier-to-understand movie, until things get very out of whack in the final act. Alex Winter actually used social media to get the public to submit 30-second video clips of themselves rocking out to a music clip from the film, with some of the clips being selected and used in the movie. These segments are shown in the credits and add a lot of heart to the final product. 

Everything about the two daughters in this movie is amazing. Their storyline and what they do is really fun and awesome. Samara Weaving (who is probably most famous for READY OR NOT and looking exactly like Margot Robbie) plays Bill’s daughter and Brigette Lundy-Paine plays Ted’s daughter. Both do a really great job of mirroring Bill & Ted’s attitudes in the movie. This thing is really well done regarding the aspects of the story where they are involved. I don’t want to give too much away if you haven’t seen this, but what they do has all the hallmarks of an actual Bill & Ted adventure. I also liked that we see more of Bill & Ted’s wives in this movie because it gives a little background into what they have gone through, but how they are involved is not great (this is also the 3rd movie a row they were played by different actresses, so don’t expect to recognize the faces). Fans of the series should be warned that this movie not only acknowledges the existence of Jesus Christ but also that He can walk on water. So if you are Godophobic or have some stick up your butt about stuff like that, either just get past it or don’t bother watching this thing… or maybe make use of the fast-forward button or whatever. 

Casting wise it is never a bad idea to get Jillian Bell (who was in GODMOTHERED), or Kristen Schaal who was in (MY SPY), but I also like the fact that they brought back William Sadler who played “Death” in BOGUS JOURNEY. DazMann Still (who plays Jimi Hendrix) is epic in this. He is probably best known for the TV show “Manifest” and we also get a great performance out of Jeremiah Craft (who plays Louis Armstrong) probably best known for LUKE CAGE. 

Looking at this thing critically the design work is pretty great, the movie flows pretty well, but I was not crazy about the actual Bill & Ted storyline. In the preview we are told that they are trying to steal this great song they are going to write from their future selves, but translating that to a storyline for those two is just really rough. I am not going to say what happens, but it’s just not the Bill & Ted we’d expect. These parts of the film involving them are mostly a downer and that is just really damn bizarre for a movie with such a fantastic message. 

Overall this movie has some ups and downs and ends up being a mixed bag. For me, this is a 4 out of 7, and I would watch it again for the good parts, but it’s not a movie I would buy. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF HAMMERSTONE STUDIOS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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