Bill & Ted Face the Music Review

After 29-years break the bodacious dudes’ Bill and Ted return for a third cinematic adventure.

Since the events of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, the titular characters have not written the song that would unite the world despite their best efforts. This has led to time and space starting to collapse. Bill and Ted get taken to the future by Rufus’ daughter, Kelly (Kristen Schaal) and the pair are told they only have an hour to write and perform the song. Due to this ticking clock, Bill and Ted use Rufus’ time machine and plan to steal the song from their future selves. Their daughters, Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving) go on their own time-travel adventure and set out to assemble the greatest band in history. Whilst the Great Leader (Holland Taylor) thinks the best way to save the universe is to kill Bill and Ted.

For a 90-minute movie, Bill & Ted Face the Music was incredibly busy. It had multiple storylines. Bill and Ted had a double story of trying to find their song and figure out how to save their marriages. As mentioned above Billie and Thea go back in time, and the film has a Terminator-style subplot. The film’s timeframe goes from 10,000 BC to 2720 AD and locations like Ancient China, 18th Century Vienna, and Hell. Because of all these plot elements, it makes it seem like there were numerous scripts and the filmmakers mash them together.

Throughout the series there has been an escalation in the stakes. Excellent Adventure was simply a time-travel comedy about two dimwits trying to pass their history class and Bogus Journey had the pair face off against a time-travelling terrorist who wanted to assassin them. Face the Music literally sees Bill and Ted having to save existence. As well as the plot being bigger, so was the scale. More of the future was shown with CGI cityscapes, the Great Leader and her advisors had holographic displays. Whilst Hell in this film was shown to be more fire and brimstone with demons flying above, instead of the surreal nightmare in Bogus Journey.

Whilst there was more special effects and CGI than in the previous films, Face the Music’s budget was only $25 million. It was only $5 million more than Bogus Adventure’s and that was a film made 30 years ago. The CGI effects were obvious and looked like TV effects for a show like The Good Place. Since the Bill & Ted films were predominately comedies it doesn’t require realistic looking effects like a serious sci-fi or action film.

The key to why the previous films worked was the characters and humour. Face the Music continues with this. Bill and Ted were still likeable as the main characters as they continue to try to write the prophesised song, even if they were a bit drained by their efforts. There were still best friends and so close they go to couples counselling together with their wives. Even the future versions of themselves who have fallen on hard times they were still best friends and the interactions between the present and future versions of the pairs were hilarious as they bicker with each other.

Thea and Billie were also a great addition to the series. Like their dads, they were best friends but luckily had a few more brain cells. They were raised on music so were incredibly knowledgeable about all sorts of artists and genres. When they do their own time travel adventure there were able to come up with solutions to the obsoletes they face. Brigette Lundy-Paine was great as the vacant daughter of Ted and Samara Weaving showed off she had comedic skills.

The film was funny throughout. Face the Music starts with an embarrassing speech and performance at a family wedding and continues from there. Highlights were when Bill and Ted met future versions of themselves who did some dodgy English accents and when there were in prison. The film did the primary job of a comedy – make me smile and laugh.

Bill and Ted Face the Music was a worthy successor to the first two films and works as a closer to the series. It was a feel-good, good-natured film.