Dude, Where's the Song?: "Bill & Ted Face the Music" a sweetly silly and most affectionate reunion

Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

88 min.

Release Date: August 28, 2020 (Limited & On Demand)

Perhaps twenty-nine years too late after their “Bogus Adventure”—1991’s wildly imaginative, wonderfully weird first sequel—lovably bodacious party dudes Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan finally get themselves a trilogy. As the long-awaited second sequel to 1989’s clever, quotable, cheerfully goofy fish-out-of-water romp “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” made three decades later, “Bill & Ted Face the Music” is as acceptably worthy as its nostalgic built-in audience deserves. What could have felt like a sad, desperate cash grab is actually a most affectionate reunion with old friends and the next generation playing the reliable oldies.

Having had their share of most excellent adventures and a bogus journey to Hell and Heaven together, San Dimas best buds Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are older but not much wiser or even gainfully employed. Their musical careers as the founders of band Wyld Stallyns never took off when their hit single failed to unite the world. After having a wake-up call that their wives, medieval princesses Joanna (Jayma Mays) and Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes), want more for them and their families, Bill and Ted go back to the drawing board, until time-traveling guide Rufus’ daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) pays them a visit from the future. According to Kelly’s mother, The Great Leader (Holland Taylor), Bill and Ted must unite the world across all time in song by 7:17 p.m., and save reality, or time and space will cease to exist. Cue these dudes hopping back in their time-traveling phone booth to find their future selves and retrieve the song they have already written. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted’s respective daughters, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine), want to help out their dads, so they go on their own fetch quest in compiling a variety of musicians from different eras, from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, Kid Cudi, and others. Can those same dudes who went all the way for their history report save humanity this time with the transformative power of music?

“Bill & Ted Face the Music” might never be laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it's not the kind of comedy that lives or dies based on its jokes. Throughout a zippy 88 minutes, it’s difficult to think of any moment that didn’t prompt a stupid grin. Written by the original two movies' scribes (Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon), this picture gets the sweetly-silly-but-never-dumb spirit and tone just right again and manages to get in cute callbacks and continuity to “Excellent Adventure” and “Bogus Journey” without grinding down the momentum. Though the script feels slightly overstuffed—The Great Leader even sends out an assassin robot with neurosis and a change of heart named Dennis (Anthony Carrigan, an unexpectedly scene-stealing hoot)—director Dean Parisot (he of the terrific 1999 sci-fi satire “Galaxy Quest”) keeps the episodic, plate-spinning yet inconsequential plot moving. 

Making a victory lap and sliding back into their iconic title roles, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are still excellent in embodying Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted ‘Theodore” Logan. The fun they are so clearly having radiates right on to the audience, and because of Bill and Ted’s kindness and loyalty, these holy fools are able to get away with a lot of warm-hearted idiocy. Uncannily passing as Winter and Reeves’ own blood, Samara Weaving (2019’s “Ready or Not”) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (2019’s “Bombshell”) are utterly adorable as music-loving daughters Thea and Billie. Their excitement of getting the chance to play the offspring and match the mannerisms to one of the most endearing slacker duos is written all over their faces. If there happens to be a next time in revisiting this cinematic universe—and fleshing out these second-generation characters—it would not be a bogus idea if Thea and Billie were the ones hopping in the phone booth.

The absence of the late, great George Carlin (though appearing in a holographic cameo) as Bill and Ted’s from-the-future mentor Rufus may be felt, but a no-nonsense Holland Taylor and quirky Kristen Schaal pick up the slack as Rufus’ familial successors. William Sadler is back to reprise his inspired comic turn as bass-playing Death, and Jillian Bell also has a couple of great scenes with priceless reactions as both couples’ marriage therapist. Only do the delightful Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes, recast as princess babes Joanna and Elizabeth, feel a bit shortchanged in their own time-traveling mission until coming back for the crowd-pleasing finale.

If ever there was a time that the world needed a joyous high-five in the cinematic form of “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” it is now. Your mileage may vary on hearing “dude” countless times, but that is wholly the point and a huge chunk of these characters’ charm. The end result feels a bit scattershot with some structural excess and a couple of forced comic bits involving future versions of Bill and Ted, but areas that miss the mark are nearly forgotten about in the moment by this thoroughly likable follow-up’s overall sweetness and sense of good-natured fun. One thing about any “Bill & Ted” movie that never goes out of style is how these irresistible characters haven’t a mean bone in their bodies and promote being excellent to each other. *Insert air guitar here*

Grade: B