Knollie Edge
Reporter
In the third installment of their bogus journey, “Bill and Ted Face the Music,” unlikely heroes and iconic best friends Bill and Ted pick up right where they left off 25 years ago – they’re still trying to write the song that will unite the world, or at least that is what the Great Leader said it would do.
The Wyld Stallyns seems to be down on their luck. Their bassist, Death (yes, literally), has left the band to go out on his own, and the two remaining members have found themselves more often at really awkward weddings and run-down pubs than on stadium tours bringing the universe together.
The world seems to have either forgotten about or no longer cares about them — maybe both. Bill is as optimistic as ever, still sure that they will write the song. Ted, however, has grown skeptical in his old age. “Maybe we should call it quits,” he suggests, and who can blame him? The future Rufus promised them all those years ago seems more like a lost memory than a prophecy.
But then, something magical happens. There is once again in their driveway a space-traveling vehicle. Though it is not a beat-up old telephone booth now, but more like a giant egg. Out steps Kelly, the daughter of their friend Rufus, who tells them that the song MUST be written, and soon. “Without it, reality will collapse, and time and space will cease to exist.” And so, off the two friends go, on their most excellent adventure yet.
“Bill and Ted Face the Music” is the typical “ode-to-the-fans” type addition to the wildly popular movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. The characters remain as slapstick and two-dimensional as they ever were, but of course, they are still as lovable, too. A lot of the plot revolves around inside jokes from the original films, and the humor is more physical than anything else. At the same time, there’s the good-spirited aspiration of a song to bring all of humanity together through the power of a lighthearted friendship. It’s a movie that almost anyone can enjoy, regardless of their background or current place in life.
“Bill and Ted Face the Music” is not the greatest movie coming out this year, or even this month. It is not a cinematic masterpiece by any means, but, if I’m being honest, I do not think anyone intended for it to be. In my opinion, this third movie in a most epic series was simply created to bring a smile to your face, and that is exactly what it does. Maybe the smile is out of enjoyment, confusion or being weirded out, but it makes you smile, nonetheless.
In the time of a worldwide pandemic, racial tensions sweeping our nation, and the craziest college semester most of us have ever experienced, a message like Bill and Ted’s is one we all need to hear, “Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes.”