Bill and Ted: Face the Review

The Bill and Ted series of films has always provided me an easy source of comforting escapism and enjoyment. The particularly innocent nature of these films has always proved to cheer me up whenever I view them. This escapism that the loveable duo of Bill S. Preston Esquire (Alex Winters) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) is more important than ever with today’s current situation. So 29 years after the release of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey the loveable Wyld Stallyns return in Bill and Ted: Face the Music. Now let’s see if it’s bogus or excellent, dude!

The Bill and Ted series tends to be known for its absurdist, loose nature of its plot, so bear with me on explaining the “plot” of Face the Music

The movie takes place in the current year, 29 years after the excellent concert Bill and Ted’s band, Wyld Stallyns had. Their initial destiny of writing the song that unites the world has still not happened, even in their middle age, when yet again, another person from the future comes back to San Dimas, California to get our titular duo to save the world. This person is Kelly (Kristin Schall) who is the daughter of Rufus (George Carlin), the duo’s initial guide in Excellent Adventure. Bill and Ted are both told they have until 7:17pm to write the song that will ultimately unite the world. Instead of using the plentiful amount of time they have to write the song, they decide to instead, time travel to steal their own song. I won’t ruin any of the gags, but each time they time travel brings a most hilarious scenario for them to encounter. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted’s daughters essentially recreate Excellent Adventure by going back in time to get musicians, such as Jimi Hendrix and Mozart, to create a backing band for their fathers. Hilarity ensues and both groups meet up in Hell and get Death (William Sadler) to bring them back to Earth and reunite the band. All of our characters end up back on Earth to play the song that unites the world.

There are only three major negatives I have with this movie. This first comes in half of our titular duo. Keanu Reeves at the start of his career was initially type casted as the “dumb guy” and throughout the years he has broken that mold with his roles as John Wick and Neo. In this movie it appears that Keanu is having a hard time embracing his roots as Ted, with much of his dialogue and delivery feeling more like his stoic modern day self. It is reasonable though, as he has endured many tragedies in his personal life that have shaped him into a far different person than how the world initially met him back in ‘89. 

The next negatives pertain to the structure of the movie, the first act goes by painstakingly slow, but this is resolved instantly as soon as Bill and Ted begin time travelling. The final negative is that the film just kinda…ends. Like i’m not joking, the ending is so abrupt that it left me wanting at least ONE scene that acted as an epilogue to the duo’s journey

The positives are abundant, Alex Winters performance as Bill is still as charismatic as ever. Although Keanu is a bit more matured, he still has good chemistry with Winters. The absurdity of the jokes also kept me thoroughly entertained, especially as the antics remind me of my favorite Bill and Ted movie, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. The returning cast of characters, such as Missy, Deacon, Ted’s dad, and Death made the movie even more enjoyable. 

Overall this movie is great escapism about positivity and uniting the world that takes everyone away from the most bogus times we are in currently.