Bill & Ted Face The Music – A Fun Return to the 80’s (Early Review)

It’s been 30+ years since the loveable knuckleheads Bill and Ted first appeared in 1989’s Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Fast forward to today, their cultural impact remains prevalent and just as excellent as it was back then. Now, the duo is back with Bill and Ted Face The Music, a film that sees them as fathers continuing to struggle to make the hit song in order to save the world while forced to face their futures as they conspire to steal their own song from their future selves. Though it’s fair to have doubts about coming back to this franchise after so much time away, this film serves as a fun follow up that is sure to bring loads of smiles as the nostalgia will appeal to viewers’ inner rocker.

It was clear from the release of the first trailer that Bill and Ted Face The Music was made for Bill and Ted fans, offering plenty of smart and funny callbacks to past films. This film saw Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves) them still married to their medieval princess wives while trying to get Wyld Stallyns off the ground and taking care of their daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). With a wider array of characters this time around, there’s more adventures to be had. As these characters go on their own adventures, they did occasionally interwine albeit a little too much but despite that, the screenplay found a way out of those situations to keep things moving quickly enough.

Meanwhile. Winter and Reeves’ performances as Bill and Ted are still most excellent. This film was clearly a passion project for them and that passion was certainly infectious and it showed in their performances where they were both compelling to watch and not to mention hilarious, proving that they have not missed a beat. Weaving and Lundy-Paine as Thea and Billie were each solid. When new characters are introduced in an already established franchise, they can sometimes feel out of place. However in this case, the two fit right in, especially Lundy-Paine who masterfully captures the mannerisms of Winter’s Ted perfectly. Viewers can expect an insane amount of cameos as well and while without giving anything away, the shock of seeing these random celebrities appear will truly be a blast in and of itself.

Unfortunately, Bill and Ted Face The Music wasn’t without issues with the biggest one arguably being its over-dependence on making those aforementioned callbacks to the previous films in the series which will come off as trying too hard. In the end, this was never going to be a game changing film by any means, it is fully aware of what it is and why it exists, embraces it to create a comforting and feel good, smile-worthy film. Regardless of how viewers choose to watch the film (either in select theatres or on VOD), they are bound to have a most excellent time or at the least, a totally non bogus journey with Bill and Ted as they face the music.

still courtesy of VVS Films

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Jaeden Noel