Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) Review

 "He broke into Dave Grohl's house!"

-Chief Logan

In the 29 years since the second film, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) have failed to unite the world with their music and time and space are beginning to collapse.  With less than two hours to write the song, Bill and Ted attempt to steal the song from their future selves.

What Works:

I love the first two Bill and Ted movies and it's great to see Winter and Reeves back in these roles.  Alex Winter hasn't missed a beat in his performance and it's awesome to see him acting again.  It's bizarre to see John Wick and Neo back in his role as Ted.  It's obvious Keanu Reeves is a very different person from his younger self.  That said, it's still awesome to have him back, which I never thought would happen.

I also loved the inclusion of their daughters, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine).  The two of them are hilarious and brilliantly cast.  Weaving looks eerily like Winter and Lundy-Paine captures the mannerisms of young Ted almost too perfectly.  She even moves the same way as him and it's pretty insane.

This movie has a lot of callbacks to the first two films, some of which work and some don't.  The stuff I like the best is the returning characters.  The continuing romances of Missy (Amy Sotch) is what kicks off the movie on the perfect note.  We also get the return of Ted's Dad (Hal Landon Jr.) and Death (William Sadler) who are both wonderful in their roles.

Finally, the 3rd act is a blast.  Getting to see everyone jamming out to an awesome song is a lot of fun and an excellent way to end the film.  It captures the wholesomeness and energy of the previous films.

What Sucks:

As I said, this movie references the first two films a lot.  What I liked so much about Bogus Journey is that it's completely it's own thing.  Face the Music does a lot of rehashing.  We get time-traveling to collect historical figures and a trip to hell.  I wish the movie had gone in a completely different direction.

The collection of historical figures isn't nearly as fun as it was in the original movie.  All of the figures collected the first time around had distinct personalities and their antics were some of the best parts of the original.  Only about half of the figures collected this time around have any personality and most of that fades by the end.  I wish they had been used a bit more. 

Finally, the Princesses have never been interesting characters in this series and they never have anything to do.  This time they have their own adventure, which we see so little so it could have probably been completely cut from the movie.  They aren't interesting, they aren't developed, and their subplot doesn't make much sense.  I admit that most of the movie doesn't make much sense, but that's not a big deal.  None of the films have made a lot of logical sense.  That's not why we love them.

Verdict:

It's great to have Bill and Ted back even if this is the weakest of the trilogy.  We get some awesome performances from new and old characters and an excellent 3rd act.  I wish this movie had been more original and had more fun with the minor characters, plus the Princesses are still worthless, but the movie has still got it going on.

 7/10: Good