I have been a longtime fan of the Bill & Ted movies. Light-hearted time traveling films about two teenage stoners, destined to unite humanity, trying to finish a High School assignment and later escaping HELL. Both films are time capsules of their time. Both films featured stellar soundtracks of the popular metal bands of the day. Both films are deadass funny. So when it was first circulating that a third film was in pre-production and being shopped around to studios – I was ecstatic. I was all in and full speed forward. I waited online for any news about the title. I was hyped when I saw Keanu talking about it in interviews and hooked on his excitement and enthusiasm for the project. All the creators were involved and returning except for George Carlin due to his passing.
From production start all the way to the first trailer, I was a Go. 2020 was looking so exciting.
Then 2020 happened and the whole year went to shit. Theaters closed, restaurants closed, everything shut down and people were out of work. Squares were left alone with nothing but their precious internet and their boredom and/or kids. Regular people lost their minds and went stir-crazy; crazier then ever.
Everything looked bleak, the world was on a flaming roller coaster ride speeding toward the gap in the loop.
But…. we had streaming services, thank you internet. We had netflix and we had hulu and all the gaggles of services fighting for you money. Finally, like the light at the end of the tunnel BILL & TED was going to have a theatrical release (yeeesh) and a home on-demand release. Rejoice! Something positive.
I waited patiently to experience what others that have seen the film before me said was, “Finally some hope in 2020 in the form of a light-hearted nostalgia trip of fun.”
I was vacationing in Los Angeles when my friend offered to play the film on a large 4k televsion. I was like, “fUCK yEah”.
Rewind : Now prior to this one of my oldest friends warned me about the film. That it wasn’t what I think it is. Of course this friend of mine is a severe critic and overly analytical of everything; he could criticize can orgasm if he felt it easily attained. He doesn’t understand what it is to just let yourself go and enjoy FUN.
The movie started and I was reintroduced to my old friends the Wyld Stallions.
And twenty minutes into the film something in my stomach started to flutter. My taste was fading for the Oreo cookies i was eating. No it wasn’t Covid. The movie just sucked.
Now it is in now way -shape-or-form as bad as BIRDS of Prey. That movie is complete dogshit.
Let’s take it from the top. I will not site any anti-feminist agenda here; I’m not a herb. I will only state what little I liked and what I didn’t like.
What I liked:
The wedding scene was the perfect trojan horse for an uncomfortable experience.
The future BILL & TED i liked, I liked that recurring situation and looked forward to seeing it play out with future and present versions of the Wyld Stallions dueling through time using some of the time travel tricks they learned from the previous films; NOPE never blossomed.
I did like seeing William Sadler return as Death; unfortunately the scene where they find him in hell is probably one of the most frustrating parts of the movie. I found myself tapping my foot on the ground with an impatient “Wrap it up” intention.
I did enjoy the main two actors. I was nice to see them running around in those characters again. I could see that they had fun filming this and I appreciate their passion to get this made. But, that’s all I liked bout this film.
The bad: EVerything. The moment in the garage is the starting point when I realized this film is taking itself way too seriously. The editing is okay. The cinematography is bad, the whole movie is filmed like an episode of SCRUBs; it looks like a made for TV movie and this whole thing might’ve worked or be better justified as just a one-shot NBC movie, I’m serious.
The visual effects when they rarely happen are fine…. except for the visuals of the future – what happened? The originals might be good examples of making the best out of limitation. However, this was just shiny filters of “bleh” on a contemporary self-Hi-fiving selfie.
The daughters are fine but really serve no purpose but to run around time on a side quest to distract you from the lack of main story there is here. Both actresses have been good in previous work but here are under utilized and tw0-dimensional.
Every one is back however, no one bothered to cast any of the actresses from the prior two films that played the princesses.
Rufus’ daughter was ….. the future characters were….. Things just happen in this film.
KID CUDI must be not doing much for budget fees cuz, he was the most uninteresting character in the movie. My friend even asked me, “Who is he?” and she’s worked in the music industry. Cudi is here to replace STATION. Why? I don’t know. I guess they ran out of money for a creature to be in the film.
And there is that goddamn robot of nothingness and bland impotent humor that is sent back in time to kill our heroes and then progresses into the most force-fed non-hitting punchline of the whole movie. “What am I watching?!!!!” is all I could say to myself.
The film does this n that and leaves you with more questions than Joe Biden playing despacito. Things just happen. Nothing really matters. They don’t write the song that unites humanity and saves reality
(yes, reality *retcon) instead it is their daughters that unite the random group of musicians from history and some how with some AKAI equipment orchestrate on the fly the composition that is the song. Bill&Ted don’t write the song, their daughters do. All BILL&TED do is run around through time with an infinity code and get every one in time to play along (How? I have no fucking idea. My disbelief was murdered after I saw Dave Grohl’s goofy face), BILL&TED’s only contribution is playing guitar riffs. And the song blows. In fact, that and the wedding song are the only two times you will have music. There is no soundtrack. I repeat there is no soundtrack. Remember the songs from the BILL&TED 2 soundtrack, well not here. Maybe it was a money issue, I know how shady labels are, and if that was the case I forgive them. But, you had Dave Grohl do a cameo and you couldn’t just ask real life musicians to get together in a think tank and write an actual song for the movie.
The movie ends and I couldn’t wait to fall asleep. I couldn’t wait to return to dystopia. I couldn’t wait to jump off a balcony.
My final feeling is this – FACE THE MUSIC blows a big fat load all over your nostalgia and would’ve been better executed with Alex Winters directing and the previous creators only serving as producers. The film should’ve been a made for TV movie and they could’ve gone through some script revisions and rewrites before the cameras started rolling. I still l0ve the first two movies. I LOVE THE FIRST TWO BILL AND TED FILMS but, I can live and die without FACE the Music.
- STAY SAFE, TALK HARD and always keep your finger on that REWIND button.Bill & Ted Face the Music is a 2020 American science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. It is the third film in the Bill & Ted series, and the sequel to Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991). Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, and William Sadler reprise their roles as Bill, Ted, and the Grim Reaper, respectively, while Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, and Jillian Bell join the cast. In the film
