In the newest and third Bill and Ted movie, Face The Music (directed by Dean Parisot and co-produced by Bill’s actor Alex Winter), there’s a scene early in the film where Bill S. Preston and his partner Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) try to have a heart-to-heart with their teenage daughters, Theadora (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). They’re both as fixated on music as their fathers were, which actually becomes a key factor of the plot as the story progresses.
I was impressed by how the performances of the kids felt remarkably close to the dynamic seen in the first two movies, particularly by Weaving as it felt like she probably re-watched Reeves as Ted multiple times to get the character’s essence right. It’s a notable result of how much time and effort was put into this lighthearted comedy. Despite it obviously not being a big-budget film, there is a sense of scale and stake in the story on top of a ton of laughs.
The newest misadventure for Wyld Stallyns sees them trying to connect the world through song, unfortunately at the cost of their commercial and critical success. Their newest single, an elaborately titled avant-garde piece they perform at a wedding, isn’t much of a hit. And after a rough shared session at a marriage counselor, the duo is feeling especially discouraged. But they’re requested by Rufus’ daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) from the future to meet with the Great Leader (Holland Taylor), who has prophecized Bill and Ted will compose a piece that will keep reality from collapsing in on itself- and it must be completed by that evening. No sweat, right?
Well, Preston and Logan are sweating this task quite hard, so in hope of an easy fix the two climb back into the iconic phone booth time machine to take the song from the future’s Bill and Ted. Their later selves turn out to be more clever than B&T were counting on though, and an emotionally insecure robot named Dennis Caleb McCoy (Anthony Carrigan) pursuing them through time doesn’t help matters either.
For all of Bill and Ted’s globe-uniting ambitions, their brains are filled more with metal hooks than common sense, leading them to make the sort of hare-brained decisions you’d expect from them as they race to save time itself. Yet there’s never anything mean or malicious about their dopey-ness. They’re genuinely sweet guys who love their princess wives and their kids, and are terrified of becoming failures as husbands to the point where their marriages are in jeopardy, leading to Princess Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes) and Joanna’s (Jayma Mays) future selves whisking the ladies around time in search of better Bill and Teds.
Yet even with the relationship drama, Face The Music never lets its character insight get in the way of maintaining a breezy, fun atmosphere. All of the revelations the duo make on just how pathetic and far their future selves have fallen are incredibly goofy, while also keeping our heroes sympathetic to the audience. They show considerable growth when reconciling with the returning Grim Reaper (William Sader), who’s salty about how his bass solos for Wyld Stallyns weren’t properly appreciated.
The writers do a nice job covering the evolution of music theory throughout time, as the daughters work backwards from rock ‘n roll with Jimi Hendrix (DazMann Still), to jazz with Louis Armstrong (Jeremiah Craft) to classical with Mozart (Daniel Dorr), even back to the ancient Chinese flutist legend Ling Lun (Sharon Gee) and a drummer cavewoman (Patty Annie Miller) before adding present-day hip-hop’s Kid Cudi as himself to go full circle. It builds to a wacky and enjoyable finale that I felt wrapped up a bit too quickly, as I would have liked to have seen something of an epilogue or closing reflection from our heroes.
That’s a very minor critique from me for what I felt was overall an upbeat and satisfyingly light comedy. It’s tough to develop a sequel that feels true to previous works in a series after such a long time gap (30 years, in fact). But Bill & Ted: Face the Music is a refreshingly uncynical and entertaining achievement in that department, and the “be excellent to each other” theme feels more woven into this film than before. If you’d had the chance to see it, as always let us know your take at @Official_FAN on Twitter or hit us up on Facebook!