Bill & Ted Face The Music

In 1989, I was a 9 year old kid watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and loving every minute of it. While it wasn’t until later in life that I really got the 69 jokes, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie nonetheless. Two years later, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (aka Bill & Ted Go To Hell) premiered and I was equally entertained. From there, I followed in Death’s footsteps learning how to play bass, aging rapidly, and sucking at Twister.

In the past few years, there have been rumblings of a return of the two dudes from San Dimas that Rufus prophesized would unite the world with song. Then, the world went to shit and even though I had heard they had been filming, I assumed like many other films, I’d just wait until 202_. But then, a trailer dropped and an August release date followed. It was time for some nostalgia.

As I mentioned on the FromThe108 Podcast, I recently rewatched the first two in preparation for the newest installation. There are some jokes that did NOT age well, there are some shoddy effects, and they win a battle of the bands with a Kiss cover despite Primus playing right before them. All that aside, they’re very entertaining. Not only that, they support the two main tenants of #108ing: being excellent to one another and partying on.

So last night, I finally got to see Bill & Ted Face The Music. One thing I was really nervous about was how they would handle George Carlin’s Rufus character. I love Carlin and was worried specifically about this. They were actually able to include him briefly in hologram form, which I thought was just enough to pay tribute and not too much where it would be weird. Instead of Rufus helping them in their journey, we get his daughter who’s played by the hilarious Kristen Schaal.

The story is similar to previous movies, reality as we know it is collapsing in on itself and the boys have 77 minutes to produce the song that saves the world. This leads them on a path to search through the future for the song, while their daughters search through the past for a band. Is it silly? Of course it is, it’s a Bill & Ted movie. Is it entertaining? Absolutely.

William Sadler returns in the film as Death and is definitely one of the funniest parts of the movie as we learn of how Wyld Stallyns broke up, Death’s stage antics, and his solo career.

While this won’t win any awards and this could possibly be the only glowing review of the film, I think this is the kind of movie we all need right now. A movie about realizing what is most important to you and trying, in hilarious fashion, to save it. If you have any interest in this movie, it’s worth the $25 to watch it on demand while it’s “in theaters.” And if you don’t, I only ask that you do what Bill and Ted have been asking the universe to do for over 30 years now: Be excellent to each other.

And, oh yeah, party on dudes.

-Chorizy-E