Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

Directed by Dean Parisot. Starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Samara Weaving, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Kristen Schaal, Holland Taylor, William Sadler, DazMann Still, Anthony Carrigan, Hal Landon Jr., Jeremiah Craft, Beck Bennett, Daniel Dorr, Kid Cudi, Amy Stoch, Jillian Bell. [PG-13]

Belated third chapter in the Bill & Ted saga finds the “most excellent” duo older, slower, (not especially) wiser, and still attached at the hip, much to the frustration of their fantastically patient princess-wives. The boys had been fated to write a song that unites the world in peace and prosperity…but cut to almost thirty years later, and they still haven’t done it (the credits montage from Bogus Journey lied to us, dude). Then they learn from the Great Leaders of the future that if they don’t finally succeed in their Herculean task by 7:17pm that very day, reality itself will unravel! Splits its time between Bill & Ted jumping ahead to try and “steal” the song from their future selves, and Bill & Ted’s young adult daughters (Lundy-Paine, Weaving) trying to put together the ultimate band by hurtling through time in the other direction and picking up the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Mozart, and so on. After a breezy and consistently engaging first act, the picture starts running out of gas a little too early, with some tired stretches leading up to a satisfactory wrap-up that’s neither a whimper nor a bang. The chief issue is a time-traveling killer robot played by Carrigan who’s such an insecure buzzkill that he practically drains the fun right out of the movie every time he appears! The likable leads sometimes struggle to reconcile their reduced vigor with their once excessively vigorous roles, but they’re still in fine form and get lots of laughs in the early-going; Lundy-Paine and Weaving, meanwhile, make for delightful chips off the old air-guitaring block. Callbacks to the first two pictures in the series are plentiful and (mostly) successful; George Carlin is missed, but his visage makes a brief posthumous appearance. A handful of real musicians have small roles and cameos, none funnier than the one who shows up at future Bill & Ted’s mansion.

66/100