After 29 years away, William Preston and Theodore Ted Logan are back, but as things did not quite work out after their last bogus journey, the Wyld Stallyns with their daughters in tow, once more need to save the world with their music, in a sequel that hits all the familiar beats!
Its a great time for fans of 80’s and 90’s fare, what with Cobra Kia finding an even bigger audience now its moved onto Netflix and with the likes of Labyrinth and even Ghostface himself getting sequels.
After years of rumours and countless false starts, its strange to have finally sat down and watched as Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves return to the roles that made them famous. Yes Reeves may have moved onto bigger things with the likes of The Matrix and of course John Wick on his CV, but there was an era where the fresh faced young man was terrified by the Easter Bunny, having stolen his younger brothers Easter basket.
if you have no idea what that scene is from and how stupid it sounds then you probably have never seen a Bill & Ted movie and if you are going into this third film with no knowledge, then you’ll probably be left shaking your head at what is happening and why there such a huge fuss on the return of these two loveable duos.
Face The Music is simply offering three options to the moviegoers. The first, if you never liked the first two offerings, then this will do nothing new to entice you. Secondly, if you loved the duo and have been waiting for this sequel for the last 30 years, then smile as you will get rewarded for your patience and thirdly, if it at least be able to gai new found fans on the way, then everyone involved has done their job.
In a clear case, “if its not broke, don’t fix it”, Bill & Ted face their usual adventure which takes them through time and back to hell, only this time, they are more older, yet not so wiser.
Unlike what we were told at the end of Bogus, their music did not save the world and the Stallyns after all these years have fallen on hard times, becoming nothing more than Wedding singers, in which the first franchise gag lands brilliantly in which they are performing at yet another wedding to series regular Missy (Amy Stoch) .
While still married to the two princesses from Excellent, a duel marriage that is need of counselling (yet another great gag) it has resulted in them both having daughters in the shape of Ted’s daughter Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Bill’s daughter Theadore (Samara Weaving).
Before I move on, Paine is simply outstanding as Ted, in which she really does channel a young Reeves with her wonderful facial expressions and body language, in fact she is more believable than Keanu himself, who struggles a bit to recapture the glory of old, most likely restraining himself from chucking on a smart suit and growing a tight beard to fight off the chaos the only way he knows.
Despite what future guy Rufus said in the original films, the band did not save the world from disaster with their music all those years ago and once more we all in danger, thanks to the Spacetime, whose ripples through time are causing historical figures being taken from their own era and placed somewhere else.
The world needs a hero and with that Rufus’ daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) pops back from the future and tells Bill & Ted that a concert they play tonight at 7:17pm will save the world, the trouble is, they only have seventy minutes to come up with a song to save us all. How do they do it?
By time travelling into the future to steal it from themselves!
Its here that some of the gags are mostly miss than hit, even though there is some affectionate charm and appreciation in what everyone is trying to achieve here.
Its when their daughter’s end up in their own time travelling machine that the film zips along with some touches in which the girls end up with such historical musical icons like Louis Armstrong, that brings back memories of the very first film, way back in 1989.
Eventually, thanks to the fantastically named Dennis Caleb McCoy, an assassin robot from the future who is played by Anthony Carrigan and trusts me, he steals the show, both plotlines eventually collide into one and we finally back with Death himself (William Sadler) which by then, nostalgia has filtered through your entire body and don’t be surprised if you find yourself smiling at the nonsense.
Which to be fair, even the die hard fans will have to admit that its all lunacy and dumb, even though every film is more cleverer than those who mock them realise. Its very, very rare that a belated sequel and we talking nearly 30 years could actually recapture some of the magic of old and yet Face The Music does the impossible by making this feel like a sequel the franchise needed.
Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon who also wrote the first two films have come up trumps in a sequel that actually gives us closure to the franchise, a last cherished outing to one of 90’s most loveable duos.
Its not without its faults, but its still rather excellent and somewhat bogus.
Non lovers will no doubt remove a hatchet below, while fans of old will add one more while agreeing that we could all do with a spin off involving their daughters and Dennis…..
Now that would be totally bodacious dudes!
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