Bill and Ted Face the ‘Meh’, uh I mean ‘Music’ – #EricSays Movie Review

Let’s face it, Bill and Ted are, well, somewhat funny. I’m not sure how you feel about the first two Bill and Ted flicks, but I’ve always enjoyed them a little bit, but never raved over them. And now, lo and behold, seemingly out of nowhere, a brand spankin’ NEW Bill and Ted movie has hit the streets! Before I get into all of that, let’s back-up a bit, going all the way back to September of 2019, long before Corona meant anything more than a mexican beer.

Back then, when a group of students and I were helping out with the Animation Convention called ‘Industry Giants’, I got to have dinner with one of my hollywood special effects heros, Steve Wang. Steve Wang is a legend for his creature design – he’s the guy who created the Predator creature after all – and he was in town for this convention. I got to sit next to him during dinner and had a grand ol’ time listening to his cool stories of working in creature effects over the years. When I asked him what he was working on he said it was top secret, and all he could tell me was that he was working on the upcoming Bill and Ted movie.  I was thinking, ‘really, they’re making another Bill and Ted movie’?  Later I found out he had created the robot character for the movie.

Cut to now, and ‘Bill and Ted Face the Music‘ is out at theaters and on demand.  I was looking forward to seeing this robot creature design, and to see if the film was fun or funny, or both.  So I went to the movie theater to watch it.  The general plot of the movie is that Bill and Ted have kinda wasted away over the years, living a sort of normal life, and they have never created the song that was supposed to unite the Universe. Older Bill and Ted still have their band the ‘Wyld Stallyns’, but nowadays they find themselves playing the local Holiday Inn on two dollar taco night. They are not living their best lives. They have wives and daughters, and their two daughters are fun to watch because they are kind of clones of their clueless dads.

Bill, Ted and their daughters get wrapped up in a time travel mess to help them create the song to save the universe, or else the universe will come to a screeching halt in 72 hours.  The robot character (weirdly named Dennis Caleb McCoy) is sent back in time to kill them, Terminator style.  This is the point where I should shut up and not give any more spoilers, so I will just give my two cents here instead!

If you love the first two movies, then you will love this film. It has all the same style of humor, and fun characterizations aplenty, to keep you happy.  If you are like me, you will kind of go ‘meh’ when you watch it.  It is fun, but to me it’s not ‘laugh out loud’ funny.  Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are great as ever at recreating their roles, even though it can be a bit unsettling to see guys in their 50’s try and be clueless teens from the 1980’s. I like the robot character a lot, and the daughters are great in this. William Sadler reprises his role as ‘Death’ from the second film, and he is good too.   

In the end I would say that you should see this film if you liked the first two Bill and Ted movies, but if you are looking for a ‘gut busting’ hilarious movie you’ll need to look elsewhere.  I found it enjoyable, but not incredible. Maybe if you’re a stoner ‘Bill and Ted’ type you’ll get a kick out of it, especially if you watch it while stoned!  Otherwise, wait to see it when you are bored one afternoon and it comes out free on Netflix…