BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC
****
Director: Dean Parisot
Screenwriters: Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon
Principal cast:
Keanu Reeves
Alex Winter
Samara Weaving
Brigette Lundy-Paine
William Sadler
Kristen Schaal
Country: USA/Canada/Italy
Classification: PG
Runtime: 91 mins.
Australian release date: 10 September 2020.
“The world of Bill & Ted has a really unique tone,” says Alex Winter, aka Bill. “Not everyone ‘gets’ it.” True that! The “most excellent” duo may not appeal to every palate but if their kind of laid-back, exaggerated-Californian, sweet stupidity is to your taste, then you’re in for a treat. It’s been 29 years since the second instalment in the franchise, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, which came only two years after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, so it’s been a long time between meals. Fans will be hungry for Bill & Ted Face The Music.
“If music be the food of love, party on dudes!”, as Shakespeare might have said if he was a character in this fresh instalment. He’s not, though, so you’ll have to be content with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Ling Lun and sundry other historical figures, musical and otherwise. Did I mention Jesus? More time-twisted than Tenet, the new movie kicks off with the premise that middle-aged Bill & Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) have written a song for their band Wyld Stallyns that united humanity and stopped space and time crashing into each other, thus saving the universe from destruction. It’s just that they haven’t written it yet and time is running out; they’ve got precisely 77 minutes to come up with it. But then Ted comes up with a “most excellent” idea - travelling forward in time so that they can steal the song from their future selves - to which Bill delightedly responds with, “Ted, you have had many counter-intuitive ideas over the years but this is the most counter-intuitive!” Cue many of the tropes from the previous two films, including the return of the time-travelling phone box, a visit to the planet of the Great Leader, a brief cameo from Rufus as a hologram (regrettably, the brilliant comedian who played Rufus, George Carlin, died in 2008), collecting a bunch of famous people from the past, and even a reunion with their old pal Death, aka “The Duke of Spook, The Doc of Shock, The Man with No Tan” (William Sadler). Add in their respective wives, the Princesses from 15th century England (Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes), and their now adult daughters Thea and Billie (Australia’s own Samara Weaving & Brigette Lundy-Paine), and you’ve got a recipe for madness and mayhem in a very similar vein to the earlier iterations. If you liked them, you’ll ‘get’ it, but if you didn’t, you won’t.
None of this should be surprising, given that Bill & Ted Face The Music is written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the original creators of the two “dudes” and writers of both the other Bill & Ted movies. Together with Winter and Reeves, they’d been kicking around a plan to make a third film for years, often coming close to getting one up only to fall at the last hurdle. Things got easier for them, however, when the John Wick franchise took off and reignited Reeves’ career, and in mid-2018 they finally got the green light. “This is a three-part story,” says Matheson. “Excellent Adventure is the beginning, Bogus Journey is the middle. And this is the end.” Solomon agrees. “The first movie, we wrote it as kind of a lark, because the characters really made us laugh. And then as it grew… it became much more meaningful. This started as something that was part of the beginnings of our professional creative life, of trying to express ourselves. Getting a chance to revisit it now that we’re at a different end of our career, or a different part of our life, turns it into a life work, not just a lark.”
But, of course, to fans it is very much a lark, albeit one with a caring message at its heart: “Be excellent to each other.” Bill & Ted Face The Music is in a cinematic universe of its own. Any violence is totally non-threatening, there’s no harsh or ‘bad’ language, it’s completely silly and simultaneously charming, even the nasty characters are likeable. In short, it’s non-cynical, innocent and optimistic, which means it’s the perfect antidote to the troubles and travails of today. Party on dudes!
P.S. Don’t walk out during the end credits. You’ll be rewarded if you stay until the very last frame.
Screenwriters: Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon
Principal cast:
Keanu Reeves
Alex Winter
Samara Weaving
Brigette Lundy-Paine
William Sadler
Kristen Schaal
Country: USA/Canada/Italy
Classification: PG
Runtime: 91 mins.
Australian release date: 10 September 2020.
“The world of Bill & Ted has a really unique tone,” says Alex Winter, aka Bill. “Not everyone ‘gets’ it.” True that! The “most excellent” duo may not appeal to every palate but if their kind of laid-back, exaggerated-Californian, sweet stupidity is to your taste, then you’re in for a treat. It’s been 29 years since the second instalment in the franchise, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, which came only two years after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, so it’s been a long time between meals. Fans will be hungry for Bill & Ted Face The Music.
“If music be the food of love, party on dudes!”, as Shakespeare might have said if he was a character in this fresh instalment. He’s not, though, so you’ll have to be content with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Ling Lun and sundry other historical figures, musical and otherwise. Did I mention Jesus? More time-twisted than Tenet, the new movie kicks off with the premise that middle-aged Bill & Ted (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) have written a song for their band Wyld Stallyns that united humanity and stopped space and time crashing into each other, thus saving the universe from destruction. It’s just that they haven’t written it yet and time is running out; they’ve got precisely 77 minutes to come up with it. But then Ted comes up with a “most excellent” idea - travelling forward in time so that they can steal the song from their future selves - to which Bill delightedly responds with, “Ted, you have had many counter-intuitive ideas over the years but this is the most counter-intuitive!” Cue many of the tropes from the previous two films, including the return of the time-travelling phone box, a visit to the planet of the Great Leader, a brief cameo from Rufus as a hologram (regrettably, the brilliant comedian who played Rufus, George Carlin, died in 2008), collecting a bunch of famous people from the past, and even a reunion with their old pal Death, aka “The Duke of Spook, The Doc of Shock, The Man with No Tan” (William Sadler). Add in their respective wives, the Princesses from 15th century England (Jayma Mays and Erinn Hayes), and their now adult daughters Thea and Billie (Australia’s own Samara Weaving & Brigette Lundy-Paine), and you’ve got a recipe for madness and mayhem in a very similar vein to the earlier iterations. If you liked them, you’ll ‘get’ it, but if you didn’t, you won’t.
None of this should be surprising, given that Bill & Ted Face The Music is written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the original creators of the two “dudes” and writers of both the other Bill & Ted movies. Together with Winter and Reeves, they’d been kicking around a plan to make a third film for years, often coming close to getting one up only to fall at the last hurdle. Things got easier for them, however, when the John Wick franchise took off and reignited Reeves’ career, and in mid-2018 they finally got the green light. “This is a three-part story,” says Matheson. “Excellent Adventure is the beginning, Bogus Journey is the middle. And this is the end.” Solomon agrees. “The first movie, we wrote it as kind of a lark, because the characters really made us laugh. And then as it grew… it became much more meaningful. This started as something that was part of the beginnings of our professional creative life, of trying to express ourselves. Getting a chance to revisit it now that we’re at a different end of our career, or a different part of our life, turns it into a life work, not just a lark.”
But, of course, to fans it is very much a lark, albeit one with a caring message at its heart: “Be excellent to each other.” Bill & Ted Face The Music is in a cinematic universe of its own. Any violence is totally non-threatening, there’s no harsh or ‘bad’ language, it’s completely silly and simultaneously charming, even the nasty characters are likeable. In short, it’s non-cynical, innocent and optimistic, which means it’s the perfect antidote to the troubles and travails of today. Party on dudes!
P.S. Don’t walk out during the end credits. You’ll be rewarded if you stay until the very last frame.
