Loveable goofballs Bill S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan (Keanu Reeves) first graced our screens over 30 years ago in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989). When we first met them, the two best friends from San Dimas were rocking out in their band, getting help with their history presentation from Socrates and Billy the Kid, and finding out that they would one day write a song so excellent that it would unite the world. The 1991 sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (Pete Hewitt), saw the boys go to hell, build robots with an alien, and win a Battle of the Bands contest. Now, decades later in Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020), they have yet to write the world-uniting song and time is running out, so Bill and Ted must, as the title suggests, face the music.
Bill and Ted are now middle-aged, married to princesses, and the fathers of daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). After years of attempting to write a song to save the world, they are informed by a time-traveller from the future that they only have until 7:17 that evening, when they have to perform the song, otherwise time and space will fall apart. While Bill and Ted decide the best course of action is to travel into the future to steal the song from themselves, their daughters get up to similar antics, travelling back in time to gather a group of famous musicians to perform in their dads’ band.
While it’s nice to see the familiar faces of Bill and Ted, as well as William Sadler reprising his role as Death, the new characters feel just as special. Kid Cudi stars as himself, and comes in useful as an apparent expert in quantum physics. An emotionally insecure robot called Dennis Caleb McCoy (Anthony Carrigan) is sent to kill Bill and Ted but instead has a nervous breakdown in front of them. And Thea and Billie, while remarkably similar to their fathers, are not exact copies. They have the love of music and optimistic outlook in common with their dads, but still stand strong as their own characters separate from the original duo. It’s also rare to see female characters that are allowed to have fun and be goofy while also being bright and thoughtful, and this film balances those traits perfectly.
Even after decades away from the franchise, writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, who wrote the entire trilogy, still manage to capture the earnest and pure nature of Bill and Ted that was found in the first two films, and continue to remind us of the words that Bill famously spoke in the first film: “Be excellent to each other”. When they began writing the script for Bill and Ted Face the Music over a decade ago, no one had any idea of the troubles the world would be facing in 2020, but the cast and crew managed to create a fun, wholesome, and heartwarming tale when we all need it most.
Bill & Ted Face the Music is released in Irish cinemas on September 16.
