They’re still losers?! They’re still “working” on their song?! I suppose on the one hand, it makes total sense. America’s original Beavis & Butt-head weren’t ever going to approach Lennon-McCartney in the field of songwriting no matter how many time machines and infinite lives they spent. However, the end credits of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey more-than-hinted at a modicum of success for Wyld Stallyns. I daresay the Billboard accomplishments at the end of said film should have at least kept the two comfortable for life, no? Hence, I’m more than a little confused at the start of Bill & Ted Face the Music in that Bill S. Preston, Esquire, Ted “Theodore” Logan, and Wyld Stallyns are collectively not even up to pathetic garage band status.
As plots go, I suppose it’s still more fun to go up than down, huh? But it doesn’t make sense.
Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are now old. We’ve watched Keanu age on screen; his middle age is hardly a shock to the system. Alex Winter’s baggy, wrinkled eyes, however, make me kind of sad. I’d feel better if he felt accomplished – and by all means, these two should feel accomplished; they kept their marriages together, each successfully raising a delightful daughter, and managed to carve out a minor career in popular music. That is a ton more than many people can manage, especially those who are idiots.
However, as their professional career has now devolved to new age experimentation and their wives are having serious doubts, Ted sees the writing on the wall. Hopefully, the writing isn’t musical notation, cuz Ted would never be able to read that. And thus with Wyld Stallyns at another cossroads, time traveler Kelly (Kristen Schaal) is summoned to take them seven hundred years in the future where the elders present give Wyld Stallyns just over an hour to come up with the song that unites the planet.
This would be a pretty big task even for Lennon-McCartney, knowwhatI’msayin’? Giving it to middle-age Beavis & Butt-head is asking for trouble – although the writers were clearly begging for comedy. Bill & Ted reason that since future past versions of them already wrote the song, all they actually have to do is time travel back to their present plus a few years and steal it from themselves. In the Bill & Ted universe, this makes total sense, and does contain the aroma of humor. Ok, we got ourselves a premise.
Meanwhile, Theadora “Thea” Preston (Samara Weaving) and Wilhelmina “Billie” Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine) –the respective daughters of Bill & Ted- have taken it upon themselves to assemble the greatest band in music history. If you squint a little, the subplot is a little like The Blues Brothers. Ok, if you squint A LOT.
I love Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I didn’t even need to call this film a guilty pleasure when i
t first arrived in 1989. Ditto Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. The films were silly, but fun, and we always sympathized with the titular idiots because they’re lovable, benevolent morons with a positive quest. It’s hard not to root for them. I was not enthralled with Bill & Ted Face the Music … and it’s not just because the premise isn’t great; I was put off by how antagonistic future iterations Bill & Ted were with their present selves. If there’s one thing we know about Bill & Ted, it’s that their friendship is time tested – and that includes all versions of Bill and Ted and several eras of time and space. They even had to label distinct “Evil Bill” and “Evil Ted” robots in Bogus Journey because the two would never turn on each other. Now, why would they fight with themselves?
I won’t say Bill & Ted Face the Music was a flat-out mistake or an unforgivable downer. I laughed a bit; I enjoyed the reprisals and cameos; I even enjoyed seeing how the pair had evolved for the worse … but I cannot recommend this film; it just wasn’t upbeat or clever enough to get over the bad optics of age and character reinterpretation. Odds are I’d have the same issues with middle-aged Beavis & Butt-head, too. Some things need to stay in the era that birthed them.
Bill & Ted’s triumphant return is a tale most mild
Are they any different than when I was a child?
Anachronism is no crime
But there’s a lesson in time
You gotta make these things while you’re Stallyns are still Wyld
Rated PG-13, 91 Minutes
Director: Dean Parisot
Writer: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon
Genre: COVID Blockbuster
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Alex Winter
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of Wyld Stallyns
