I can still remember the first time I saw a Bill & Ted film. I was in Primary School and while at my friend’s place he shoved this pink and purple VHS into my hands and said “Dude, we need to watch this.” From that moment I was hooked with these likable idiots. I wanted to be them so much that they are probably one of the reasons why I love hard rock and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I used some of the things I learned from the film when it came to History at High School.
Yes, I wanted to be Bill and Ted but then I grew up. I graduated, went to College, got married and bought a house… like adults do. But according to what we find in the new instalment of the Bill & Ted franchise people don’t change – they are the same forever. Yes, it is ridiculous to think that way but that is what any audience going into this film is expected to think.
Set nearly thirty years after the originals Bill And Ted Face The Music find Bill (Alex Winter – Grand Piano) and Ted (Keanu Reeves – John Wick) completely washed up but the fathers of two daughters – Thea (Samara Weaving – Guns Akimbo) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine – The Glass Castle). The two’s music careers are over and their marriages are in tatters – in general their lives are a mess.
Then out of the blue Kelly (Kristan Schall – The Muppets) turns up from the future to tell them that the world is about to end if Bill and Ted can’t create the perfect song. The two travel through time to try and find how they wrote the perfect song while being pursued by a deadly assassin named Dennis Caleb McCoy (Anthony Carrigan – Gotham). Meanwhile Thea and Billie begin their own journey through time in a bid to build the perfect band for their fathers.
To be honest this was probably one of the most disappointing films I have watched in a long time. I wanted to see the filmmakers, director Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) and his screenwriting team, doing something really special with this film; instead I got something that was slightly insulting to my childhood. Not only is the film plain dumb and feature nothing ‘spectacular’ that I was hoping for but the film seems to be ill thought out. I get that Bill and Ted are losers whose lives have never reached the potential that they should have; you know what as a fan of Jay and Silent Bob I can deal with that. What I can’t deal with or even believe is that they are so juvenile that they still speak like stoners so much later in their lives… it is so ridiculous that nobody can comprehend it.
Likewise the film does nothing ‘special.’ Despite a few moments that might make you chuckle Bill and Ted’s journey is this film is lacklustre and nowhere near as exciting as the journey in their original film. I can’t help but wonder why the writers didn’t do more things like the brilliant Dave Grohl cameo – this film needed to be epic not the lacklustre yawn fest that it became.
There are times during this film that the script is so stupid that I swear Keanu Reeves looks uncomfortable. We know what a brilliant actor he is but there are times during the film where his ‘stoner’ language and laugh seem to be ‘forced’ and you can see his mind asking “why did I sign up for this?” Despite the quality of the performers in the film, including Samara Weaving, this is not a film that is going to end up a highlight on anyone’s acting resume.
There will be a lot of people out there who go out and watch Bill And Ted Face The Music simply because of the nostalgia factor. As a fan of the original movies though I have to warn you that you will be sadly disappointed.
