Bill & Ted Face The Music

“Be excellent to each other” is quite the bodacious credo and should be adorning plenty more t-shirts.

Despite this, does 2020 need a Bill & Ted remake/sequel? Probably not, but in this most strange of years a 29 years later (!) sequel to a cult stoner film hardly registers as a footnote.

All these 'super sequels' tend to do is make people feel old but, for a slacker comedy, Bill & Ted always had a very clear central message that music, and being kind to our fellow humans, could change the world and it deserves great credit for sticking to it here.

This film actually, kind of, answers the lingering question left from the first two films: we’re told that Bill & Ted are held up as Messiah-like figures in the future but it’s never really been explained why to a satisfactory degree. When/how/why did Bill & Ted actually ‘save the world’ with a song? The answer won’t surprise you but will thoroughly entertain you for 90 minutes.

It merges the first two films into a fairly cohesive double narrative split between Bill and Ted encountering alternate future versions of themselves (and Dave Grohl in a random but brilliant cameo) and their daughters, far more like the duo of the first two films, trying to recruit a band of historical figures.

Whilst it’s paced well and both paths are completed satisfactorily: the historical band is completed with a trip to hell to recruit Death on bass, it’s just not that funny. Always light and clever, sure, but lacking in proper jokes or set pieces aside from the different future versions of the titular duo. Some of the dialogue seems badly improv’d (a random killer robot being the worst example.)

It’s extremely watchable though and Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine put in a very good case for a spin-off film following their lives as the new incarnation of the duo. The daughters embody the language and mannerisms of the earlier films and, whilst perhaps more could have been achieved with them being dismissive of their fathers peculiar behaviours rather than in thrall of it, they are immense fun and their reactions to meeting each legendary musician (Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong etc.) is the best thing about the film.

It’s a little odd to hear Keanu Reeves’ now gruff voice in place of his younger self but the titular two deserve credit for throwing themselves wholeheartedly into this sequel, and donning various accents, haircuts and body suits for their future selves. It’s a fitting swansong for them.

A film that no one asked for or expected then but, nonetheless, a pleasant surprise. Surprisingly unindulgent (once the two are given '77 minutes to save the world' the film ends at exactly that point, effectively making it ‘real time’) and sticking to its philosophies. We could all do well to act a little more like Bill & Ted and be excellent to each other. Just save the “party on, dudes” bit until it’s safe to do so though eh.

3 stars ***