Review: ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ is a most triumphant return

Nearly 30 years after we last saw Theodore “Ted” Logan and William S. “Bill” Preston on-screen together, the long-awaited third Bill & Ted movie is here. A fun and heartfelt bit of fan service, Bill & Ted Face the Music reunites the dim-witted rockers Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) as they once again try to save the universe through the power of music.

The years have not been kind to the Wyld Stallyns. Bill & Ted’s band was supposed to inspire a future utopia based on their music, but in their current reality, they are overwhelmed fathers of teenage girls and just can’t get their act together. Endlessly devoted to each other, they don’t even think twice about bringing one another along to couple’s therapy, to the obvious disappointment of their wives. Now middle-aged rockers with no real plans for the future, the duo receive a message from Kelly (Kristen Schaal), an ambassador from the future and daughter of Rufus (played by the late and great George Carlin in the two prior films), the visitor from the future who first guided Bill & Ted to glory years earlier. Kelly has a dire message; the duo has just 78 minutes to write a song to save the universe.

While Bill and Ted travel through time to try and steal the song from future versions of themselves, their daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) get access to their own time-traveling phonebooth and set about trying to creating the ultimate backing band for their dads, including Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, a reunion with Death himself (the great William Sadler), and Kid Cudi (hey, they need someone to represent the current millennium). Meanwhile, both generations of the Logans and Prestons are being chased by an awkward killer cyborg (Anthony Carrigan) out to prevent them from their unifying RN’R task.

Written by Bill & Ted creators Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon and directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest), Bill & Ted Face the Music feels like an effortless return to the wacky sci-fi universe of the first two films. This is a film clearly made for fans of the series, but Reeves and Winter seem to be having so much fun back in the phonebooth that it never feels like a cynical cash-grab. Their relationships with their daughters feel earned and lived-in, and Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine bring a refreshing energy to the franchise, and could easily lead another installment of the series down the road.

Essentially a combination of the first two films with the middle-age dad rock woes and family ties added in, Bill & Ted Face the Music is a relentlessly fun and silly ride that should spark the right nostalgia hit for fans who grew up with the series, with just enough connections to the present day to draw in the next generation of Wyld Stallyns disciples. At a brisk 88-minutes, Bill & Ted Face the Music is just the kind of manic mindlessness most of us could use right now. Most triumphant!

Bill & Ted Face the Music is available on VOD and in select theatres on August 28.