Review: Bill And Ted Face The Music

Image courtesy of Orion Pictures.

Arriving 29 years after the second film in the series, "Bill and Ted Face the Music" might not be excellent, but it's far from bogus - in fact, it's likely the most enjoyable all around among the three films. The first "Bill and Ted" was a silly, but charmingly amusing, film about two dopey, but good natured, metal heads from California who learned a history by time traveling. It's peculiar sequel found the boys confronting Death, who makes an appearance in this latest film

Set in the present, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are still married to the princesses they met in the previous film - Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes) and Joanna (Jayma Mays) - but their relationships are a bit rocky. At the film's beginning, they are all in couples therapy... together. And Bill and Ted don't seem to appreciate the fact that their wives are bothered when either of the men discuss their relationships with their psychiatrist (Jillian Bell), and always refer to "we" - meaning, Bill, Ted and their two wives - rather than referring to a married pair.

The two men are also fathers to two girls - Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving) - who also happen to be music-heads. They obviously look up to their fathers. Career-wise, Bill and Ted's lives appear to be going nowhere, although they naturally still own the type of homes that people whose lives are going nowhere can afford to own in movies. 

The boys are still members of the Wyld Stallyns, although their musical career has gone from being successful to playing dive bars with just a few attendees. One of the film's funnier jokes involves them discussing their fans, who Ted is able to refer to by name in just a few seconds. However, the film quickly provides a silly plot device - an emissary from the future (Kristen Schaal), daughter of Rufus (the late George Carlin, who appears in a hologram) - in which the two men must save the universe from disappearing by coming up with a song to unite all humanity.

The conundrum involves people from different points in time disappearing and appearing in other points in time - in other words, the universe is out of whack, and the only thing that can save it is a song. Billie and Thea take up the mission to find a backup band to help Bill and Ted by traveling through time - where they meet everyone from Jimi Hendrix and Louis Armstrong to Mozart. Bill and Ted, on the other hand, come up with a plan to find their future selves, and steal the song from them.

Their future selves are deadbeats, convicts and, during one of the film's better scenes, elderly men in a nursing home, where Bill and Ted have frank conversations with their senior citizen versions about whether they have let each other down. If that sounds a little meta - and nutty - it is, but it manages to work.

Yes, the film is pretty silly, much like the previous Bill and Ted movies, although the use of Death as a character works a little better this time around than in the previous picture. There's also something to be said for the fact that the universe hangs in the balance in the picture, and the elements used to save it are decency, camaraderie, creativity and loyalty, all things that seem quaint during our current moment when the world hangs in the balance. It also has an interesting take on the concept that what one thinks one's destiny is and what it actually turns out to be can be illuminating.

"Bill and Ted Face the Music" occasionally stumbles when the film's ridiculous plot veers all over the place, and not all of the jokes land - the marital issues take up a bit too much time - but this is a good natured follow up that gets by on the chemistry between its two charming leads. It's a sequel that actually has purpose, other than to make money off nostalgia, and you might be surprised where it all ends up.