THE PARTY’S OVER, DUDES
Fun sequel should be Bill and Ted’s last hurrah
BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC (PG) ★★★★★
IF THIS Is Spinal Tap cranked up the volume to 11 on rip-snorting musical comedy, the wistful third album of lackadaisical time-travelling dudes Bill and Ted turns the knob back down to a faint hum.
Materialising almost 30 years after the second film, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, director Dean Parisot’s rambunctious romp welcomes back screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon for a (presumably) final greatest hits set-list.
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter gleefully embrace the ravages of age in myriad incarnations of the title characters, including a touching scene in a nursing home where grey-haired and dewy-eyed Bill and Ted pass on words of wisdom to their younger selves.
William Sadler reprises his role and a strangled Czech accent as the bass guitar-thrashing Grim Reaper while Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-paine redress the gender imbalance as the heroes’ daughters.
An air of sweet nostalgia whistles through each madcap interlude, connected by the introduction of a robot called Dennis (Anthony Carrigan), who has been hard-wired without one decent punchline.
The script is at best amusing but never genuinely hilarious, albeit with an uplifting encore to extol the power of music to unite us in times of isolation.
The ancient prophecy, which decreed best friends Bill S Preston (Winter) and Ted Logan (Reeves) would compose a song that unites the world, remains unfulfilled.
“We have been banging our heads against a wall for 25 years and I’m tired dude,” laments Ted to his hard-strumming pal.
More pressing, Bill and Ted are locked in couples’ therapy to save their marriages to wives Joanna (Jayma Mays) and Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes).
Time-travelling emissary Kelly (Kristen Schaal), daughter of The Great Leader (Holland Taylor), arrives from 700 years in the future with dire tidings: Bill and Ted have just 77 minutes and 25 seconds to write their musical masterpiece or space will fold in on itself.
The duo agree the “most counter-intuitivest idea” – steal the fabled song from their future selves.
While Bill and Ted ricochet through time, daughters Thea (Weaving) and Billie (Lundypaine) conceive an outlandish plan to put together the ultimate super group including Mozart (Daniel Dorr), Louis Armstrong (Jeremiah Craft) and Jimi Hendrix (Dazmann Still).
Bill & Ted Face The Music feels like a farewell concert by a duo who have almost outstayed their welcome and have reached the point where they need to hang up their guitars or tarnish their legacy.
Reeves and Winter rekindle the easy-going charm from earlier instalments, trotting out catchphrases with goofy grins that suggest they are having a ball, even if that doesn’t translate to bodacious belly laughs.