Simple Plus Ambition Equals Simply Ambitious! Bill and Ted Face the Music (Review)

Sep 14, 2020

Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020)
Hammerstone Studios

Directed by Dean Parisot
Written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon
Starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving and Bridget Lundy-Paine

The Boys from San Dimas are back for a final journey! Nearly 30 years since their Bogus Journey, Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan are back in Bill and Ted Face the Music. Many things have happened since their last major concert for the world but it wasn’t THE concert now the song that would unite the world. 25 years later and still looking, they get a visit from the future warning them that they need to perform the song otherwise all of space and time will be destroyed (Rufus missed a few things). So the guys go out to get the song the only way they know how…. from themselves!

Joining the men journeying through time will be their daughters (yes, daughters and don’t bring up the whole Little Bill and Little Ted thing, I’ve heard it!!) played by Samara Weaving (niece to The Matrix’s Hugo Weaving) and Bridget Lundy-Paine (Netflix’s Atypical). Without giving anything away, time traveling comedy and ingenuity come about from their adventures and give us an ending 30+ years in the making. While we don’t get our original princesses in the film, the performances of Erinn Hays and Jayma Mays was quite outstanding and enjoyable. Even William Sadler’s return as Death ranged a multitude of emotions that I didn’t expect to get in this movie.

This 91 minute comedy was just what I was expecting and so much more! I can’t say that I was disappointed at all with how the film went and how it unfolded. The additions of Weaving and Lundy-Paine held their own excellently and Winter and Reeves, being the best of friends both in the film and in real life, really shows after all these years. Bill and Ted may just be two ambitious and simple rockers from California but in this age we need the Wyld Stallyns and their music. Speaking of the music, it was another nicely put together soundtrack similar in feel to the first film. The music was more unknown and not as popular universally as Bogus Journey but for me that’s part of the appeal. Two titles that really grabbed me are Weezer’s “Beginning of the End” and Blame My Youth’s “Right Where You Belong”. Overall, Bill and Ted Face the Music is one of the better third movies in a trilogy and will definitely go down, in my opinion, as one of the most humbling, feel good films of the 2020s if not the 21st Century! Rating 9.5/10