Bill & Ted Face the Music

I loved the Bill and Ted movies, especially Bogus Journey. But this was a disaster.

You can feel the cringe all over this, from the undeveloped script, the callbacks, the woke Hollyweird stuff, and that cheese finale.

Alex Winter did sooo much better than Keanu Reeves in this one. Which was surprising.

William Sadler was amazing as Death, again. The scenes with the princesses also played very well.

The daughters and all the new side characters didn't work. The robot might have worked if the rest of the film played better.

I would have given this 1 star if it wasn't for Alex Winter. The future versions of Bill were golden. British Bill was so creepy and Old Bill's face will keep me laughing for a couple more days. You can tell he worked so much harder than everyone else involved.

It's great seeing some of the actors return. You can tell everyone had a blast filming this. That alone in certain moments can bring a smile to your face. Not all of the jokes land, but that's comedy. The finale damn near brought me to tears. I guess 2020 has been a rough year.

The directors tried to reinvent the movie with Bill and Ted's daughters which was a huge mistake. I'd recommend watching the movie but skipping over the scenes without Bill and Ted. This vastly improved things and got me through watching it. I had no interest in the daughters and it was a mistake to put them into the movie as such an integral part of things. What made the first movies great was Bill and Ted. New characters that dominate the scenes just take away from who would see this movie. More Bill and Ted would make this better and completely scrapping the side story of the daughters. The actresses aren't bad that play the daughters but it just isn't something that ties into what made the first two movies great.

We have to face facts, the reason there are so many sequels and remakes of movies from the 80s and 90s is because Hollywood peaked then. The 2000's marked the beginning of the decline, which has been rapidly descending in the last few years. Despite this decline and despite the mediocre Force Awakens style influences in the script, the charm and humour... and of course the nostalgia saves this from being unwatchable, which is high praise. Zazz as the robot steals the show along with the woman from Flight of the Concordes but I mostly left feeling a little sad that this movie wasn't made in the 90s and sad that Keane Reeves may not actually be immortal.

Maybe coming from a place of bias for having loved the originals as a young 'un, I can't help but respect the team for having another go at such a stupid premise. An A lister like Keanu could have scoffed it off and went back to making Oscar bids, but instead swallowed his pride and returned to the dopey character that kickstarted his career. It properly pays homage to the feel of the originals, bouncing from one illogical time travel scenario to another, never taking itself seriously and roping in a couple celebrity cameos who also seem to be just enjoying the ride. It nods to how absolutely ludicrous the idea of a "song that unites the world" is while still maintaining that earnest 80s belief that rock 'n roll can save your soul.