Bill & Ted Face the Music
Year: 2020
Rating: PG-13
Length: 91 minutes / 1.52 hours
One thing I hate about trilogies is that sometimes movies don’t need to be trilogies. If everything has been covered in the previous two movies (or even the first movie), the only reason for any additional films in the franchise seems to be for the sole purpose of making money. What’s worse is franchises that release their third movie long enough after the first two that it’s more of a nostalgia trip/reboot than anything that adds significantly to the lore.
What’s perhaps most disappointing about Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) is how I had high hopes for it. Granted, my nostalgia for Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bogus Journey (1991) mean that I hoped there would be a significant shift in Face the Music that would explore something new that might have developed in the last 30 years. Instead, Face the Music treads all the same territory from the first two films—basically acting as a refresher and a gender-swapped reboot all in one. Sure, Face the Music has a certain logic to its premise, and I liked being able to revisit this franchise, but the execution was more of the same.
Perhaps the fact that I’ve grown up since the first two films is the reason why this one didn’t click for me. There was a lot of comedy that made the previous movies click but fell flat in this iteration. Most of the new characters to the series felt uninspired (like the theoretical physicist rapper—a straight pull from Futurama‘s Harlem Globetrotters) or just plain awkward (like the android sent from the future). Honestly, while I felt the collection of famous musicians would have been a better way to extend the themes from Excellent Adventure into Bogus Journey, it seemed like too little too late to save this aging franchise.
A disappointing end to a trilogy, I give Bill & Ted Face the Music 3.0 stars out of 5.
