'Bill and Ted Face the Music' review: More bogus than excellent
Photo courtesy of Orion Pictures.
When the time-traveling comedy “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” was released in 1989, reviews weren’t kind, and, except for a few passionate fans, audiences collectively shrugged. Those dedicated few saw something special in the story of two high-school burnouts who use a time-traveling phone booth to jump from one seminal moment in history to the next, allowing them to gather first-hand knowledge to pass their U.S. History course. They appreciated the silliness of that concept and its 1991 sequel “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”, which only upped the ante of outrageousness; so they will no doubt appreciate this latest chapter, “Bill and Ted Face the Music”. Everyone else should stay far away from this incredible mess of a movie.
In this latest chapter, best friends and failed musicians Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are older but not exactly wiser - a gag that wears out its welcome within the first few minutes of the movie. They’re each married with equally directionless kids, but the root of their domestic troubles lie with their unsatisfied wives, resulting in forced couples counseling. It seems to dawn on everyone but Bill and Ted that their true love is for each other and the awful music they create, leaving anyone else a very distant second.
That’s where the originality of “Bill and Ted Face the Music” stops and the audience pandering begins. It turns out the world is in trouble, and the only duo who can set things right are the equally puzzled Bill and Ted. A futuristic visitor alerts the heroes that the only way to bring peace and harmony to the universe is to create the perfect song of unity and share it with the world. At first flabbergasted and then creatively blocked, the lazy musicians agree that the best course of action is to use the aforementioned time-traveling device and steal the perfect piece of music from themselves in an alternate timeline. The way they see it, this music has already been put to good use so why not repurpose it, right? The logic and mechanics of this plan make no sense to everyone else, including the audience, which make the rest of this movie a long riff of celebrity cameos and dumb comedic gags that rarely pay off.
“Bill and Ted Face the Music” will please fans of the franchise and do little to convert everyone else. You can almost sense writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon patting themselves on the back as they keep rehashing callbacks from the previous two movies in their desperate hope to appeal to fans. In this case history has truly repeated itself, because the franchise has continued to only appeal to those willing to go along for the silly ride.
Rating: D
“Bill and Ted Face the Music” is now playing in limited release and video on demand.
