Bill & Ted Face the Music2020

RATING: 🥈Should See (explanation below) Face the Music, while fun and faithful to the legacies of Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey, struggles to match their timelessness and endless quotability. The cast is a classic reunion, with Chief Logan, Deacon, Missie (in another family-bending relationship), and the scene-stealing William Sadler reprising his iconic role as Death 💀. Newcomers Bill & Ted’s daughters did a smashing job, especially Bridgette Lundy-Paine. The ending was most epic indeed. As for Bill & Ted themselves? Alex Winter still nails Bill, but Keanu appears to have traded Ted’s spunky obliviousness for John Wick’s apathetic straightness, and like a lost dog can’t quite seem to get it back. The music was on point, and the historical guests this time were good but only Mozart got to bring some of the Excellent Adventure humor back, which was a huge missed opportunity. Most of the best quotes from E.A. were Bill & Ted’s interactions with the historical dudes. And that’s really where this movie doesn’t fully belong on the same level in the B&T saga. After several years of writing, they still couldn’t come up with lines of this caliber: Bill: You ditched Napoleon! Ted: Deacon, do you realize you have just stranded one of Europe's greatest leaders in San Dimas? Deacon: He was a dick. Normally I’d have give this movie a “🥉Could See” rating, but I gave it a “🥈Should See” because this film was driven by the artists, with Winter and Reeves, along with writers Solomon and Matheson, fighting to get funding, a script, a director, distribution, etc. These kinds of labor of love projects deserve support. The movie was fun and the message honored Bill & Ted’s mission from the very beginning: Unite the world through music.