Fans of the Bill and Ted series have been waiting a very long time for its third installment. The good thing is the movie is well worth the wait. The script is ingenious, the performances are almost universally great and the film is just an excellent salve at a time when people need it.
The bad thing is the film makes viewers wait an extra ten minutes for all the good things to happen. Bill and Ted's opening is awful. It opens with a pretty alright montage and voiceover by the daughters of the titular characters laying out the basic plot; despite all their success, Bill and Ted have yet to fulfill their destiny and write the song to unite humanity. Their failure could mean the end of space and time. It's incredibly simple.
Then the film makes viewers wait through a spell where the film hasn't quite found its groove. The opening drama adds some great setups for later punchlines and pathos, but Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon's script doesn't handle the drama as well as it handles the comedy. These movies are dumb and the first ten minutes of Bill and Ted Face the Music take themselves just a little too seriously. Once Bill (Alex Winter), Ted (Keanu Reeves) and their daughters Thea and Billie (Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine) embark on their adventure, the film feels right at home with its predecessors.
Bill and Ted Face the Music finds ways to update the formula. The most noticeable is, well, in the music. Where the first two films almost exclusively concerned themselves with two frontmen and classic rock, Thea and Billie are more interested in production, hip hop and electronic music. Their immediate instinct to help their dads is to create a library of samples. Their second is to form a band. It's an easy way to acknowledge popular music's arc over the last 30 years(!) while leaving its title characters proudly where they were.
Hell, the film freely remixes its predecessors. Face the Music heavily borrows from both movies, but it does with such glee and earnestness it doesn't matter. The characters are along for the ride as much as the audience is.
Lundy-Paine and Weaving are the movie's highlights. They're believable as the daughters of two SoCal slackers, capturing the energy that made the first two films lovable. Much has been made of female-led spinoffs lately, but Bill and Ted might just be the franchise most deserving of one. Also of note are Anthony Carrigan's killer robot Dennis and William Sadler's return as Death, who's become a snobby bassist.
Bill and Ted Face the Music might not be one of the most impactful films of the year, but it will put a smile on your face. That is enough right now.
Final score: 7.3/10